


build a life in this house

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Bellamy, Character Deaths, Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, M/M, Murphy is a Little Shit, Pansexual Murphy, Parenthood, Slow Burn, a real bitch of an unsatisfactory situation, clexa baby, two men and a baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-11-20 23:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 54,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: After a blind date gone horribly wrong, Murphy, a disgruntled cook at The City of Soups, and Bellamy, heir to his mother’s tailor shop, are forced reluctantly together in a blur of their mutual friends Clarke and Lexa's parties, weddings, and birthdays. After a tragic accident, their friend’s child is left orphaned, and their names are listed inexplicably as her designated godparents. When guilt and a shared love for their deceased friends coerces them to share custody of the infant, the two unprepared and outmatched enemies are forced to give up their single lives and learn to coexist under the same roof without killing a baby, or each other. A shitstorm ensues.





	1. for now we're still young

**Author's Note:**

> ** this is a "life as we know it" murphamy knock-off. wholesome shit. the chapter titles are all going to be from sons and daughters by allman brown even though it has hardly anything in common with the fic and until i inevitably run out of lyrics and start making up weird chapter titles on my own.
> 
> p.s. i know i started a canonverse dads!murphamy fic a while back and abandoned it, but it just was not going anywhere and it wasn't...mmm how you say... good. two time's the charm, though, right?
> 
> thanks for checking this out. hope you enjoy!

 

_November 9th, 2014_

   “They better have died in a horrible wreck,” reflection-Bellamy murmurs to real-Bellamy, and real-Bellamy gives him a withered look of agreement as he straightens the navy silk around his neck, tie fading into neat stripes that may never see the world if his stupid, stupid, _stupid_ blind date doesn’t show up soon. The big, bold hand on the clock ticking above the mirror rests comfortably on the nine, rather than eight where it should have been when Bellamy was applying another spritz of cologne, almost obsessively dragging tan fingers through freshly-washed, fucking _voluminous_ curls. He rinsed and repeated for this. Rinsed and _repeated._

He casts another gaze of disappointment at his equally perturbed reflection, before settling into the den’s loveseat, one cushion dented in by long-applied weight, the other cushion perfectly springy, untouched by years of a particularly tired ass. Bellamy gathers a wilting, bright blue copy of Plato’s _Republic_ into his fancy-suit-pants clad lap, and curls around the ancient words contentedly, a much better use of his night than whatever asshole that had decided to drive their fucking tortoise to pick him up.

The clock ticks incessantly enough to become white noise, though hardly a page has been flipped, when someone leans heavily on the doorbell. The shrill chime careens from wall to wall, attacking Bellamy’s eardrums relentlessly as he scrambles to answer the door. He whips the door from its place nestled in the face of his childhood home with a scrunched-up face and a clenched jaw. “What?” he snaps.

“Well, aren’t you a charmer,” the lean figure perched on his doorstep like a white owl- big, gleaming blue eyes, flour-white skin, startlingly casual clothes wrinkled and tossed by the wind like ruffled feathers- teases with a low drawl.

“Are you the ‘jaded but well-meaning sweetheart’ that Clarke forced upon me, or am I about to walk out of this house with one of the Cullen children?” Bellamy frowns, smoothing down his crinkled tie, for reasons unbeknownst to him. The guest snorts endearingly, and honesty be damned if it doesn’t soften the fire in Bellamy’s eyes for a moment.

“She was generous with her description, but you seem to fit the bill of ‘tall, tan, and-” The shorter man gives him a suggestive once-over that has Bellamy straightening himself in the doorway, sticking his chin up a little higher. “-handsome’, objectively.” The other man spares his confidence and decides not to linger on the punctuation. “So I’d say we’re good to go.”

“I mean- I was good to go an hour ago, but, hey, you know,” Bellamy murmurs, locking and closing the door behind him after he checks that his pockets are lined with the sharp jingle of the necessary keys and the smooth leather of a necessary wallet. He mourns for the missing curves of his mace dispenser, but perhaps Hedwig here will redeem himself as the night progresses.

“Traffic,” the stranger offers as they step down from the front porch, and Bellamy narrows his eyes at the street that has sat untouched for hours, long enough for piles of autumn leaves to gather atop the yellow lines in the pavement.

“So, how long have you known Clarke?” the man calls over his shoulder as Bellamy follows his shuffling Converses down the driveway.

“We met in college; you?”

He whistles, as if something about Bellamy’s answer was impression-worthy. “High school. Or so she says, I hardly showed,” he adds, punctuated with a self-amused chuckle before he shoves a helmet into Bellamy’s hands. A dirty, cruiser-style Harley leans heavily on a kickstand by their hips, and another noteworthy crumb of Bellamy’s optimism dies.

Clarke sure knows how to pick them.

“Where did you make our reservation?” the taller man questions curiously, settling the gasoline-scented helmet atop minty-fresh curls. They were fucking _voluminous._

The young man blinks, face without answer, or even comprehension.

“You didn’t- okay-”

“I thought-”

“No, it’s fine, we’ll just-”

**_“But I’m a creep!”_ **

The man’s pocket lights up, buzzing against the fabric of his jeans as his ring tone blares confidently from his side.

“There’s a place-” Bellamy attempts, over the incessant rasping of Radiohead’s growling electric guitar, hissing urgently in his date’s pants pocket.

**_“I’m a weirdo!”_ **

The man looks at him, slightly apologetic as he covers the phone with a hand, hardly succeeding in muffling the insistent noise.

“A place downtown that-”

_**“What the hell am I doing here?”** _

“Just- just answer it!” Bellamy relents, and the man fumbles awkwardly to retrieve the screeching device from his pants.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s kinda long, I’ll just-” he rambles as he tugs it out of the too-tight skinny jeans pocket with a visible struggle and a string of bitten down grunts.

“Who has fucking Radiohead for a ring tone?” Bellamy whispers to himself, massaging his aching temples and trying those breathing exercises he read about as the stranger turns slightly away to cup the phone against his ear.

“Hey, Nathan,” the man says, hushed, as if he’s sneaking into a government facility and not standing in his blind date’s empty driveway. “Are we meeting- okay, eleven, yeah, sounds good-”

He’s making different evening plans? Already?

Bellamy’s sorry excuse for a date casts a tight look over his shoulder. “Make it ten thirty,” he adds in a rushed little whisper, a smirk curling the corners of his lips suggestively at something said on the other end of the line, before thumbing the bright red End Call button and slipping the phone back into his pocket, grinning falsely apologetically at Bellamy’s face of pure bewilderment and burning offense as he shuffles to the motorbike and takes hold of one of the handles. “Sick friend, sorry,” he explains pathetically, gesturing with an open hand at his pocketed phone.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Bellamy offers as an out between his teeth, perhaps for the both of them.

The vampiric-looking man quirks an eyebrow. “Really? Okay,” he accepts all too quickly, throwing a leg over the bike and settling in to... fucking _leave?_ It was a _test!_

_“Seriously?”_

The brunet sighs, lowering his head so strands of his gelled-back hair slip from their intended places and dangle wistfully by his ears. “Look, let’s be honest, you didn’t like me from the moment you saw me. What’s the point?”

Bellamy gapes incredulously. “The point is that a mutual friend set us up, for some God-only knows reason, and the least we could do is pretend to like each other and make some fucking small talk over last minute food or drinks, for her sake.”

White Owl scrunches his brows together and grins skeptically. “We can’t even make it out of your driveway. Best case scenario? We get wasted and maybe pay a visit to pound town in the bathroom, call it a night.”

Bellamy blanches. He could have spent his night video-chatting Octavia, catching up on his reading, drinking excellent-enough fucking boxed wine in bed; but no, he’s shivering in his best suit and a motorcycle helmet in his driveway in the dead of November, begging some trashy white boy to take him on a date without banging him in the McDonald’s bathroom.

“You’re a real ass, you know that?”

The man tilts his head noncommittally. “So I’ve heard.”

Bellamy glares.

“Look, it’s a shiny Saturday night, I just wanna have a good time and visit my-” he pauses, tilting his freakishly big, stupid head a little further to the right. “-sick friend. And you can be free to do whatever it is you like to do on Saturday nights. I don’t know... read a book. You look like someone who reads books,” he monologues, Bellamy staring somewhere past him with burning ears.

“If you wanted to have a good time tonight, maybe you could have, oh, I don’t know, not shown up an hour late without reservations or made a booty call right in front of me.”

The man snorts, and Bellamy feels none of that earlier fluttering endearment at the sound, only fiery annoyance and a tinge of hatred. “ _Booty call?_ People still say that? And anyway, I told you, he’s sick.”

“And you’re going to heal him with your magic dick?” Bellamy bites, arms crossed tightly against the bitter fall winds.

The stranger does a spit-take dry, sputtering on air as his eyes sparkle in amusement at the vulgar comment, and something else.

He quirks his pillowy- _no, Bellamy-_ he quirks his lips up at the corners, mouth curling devilishly into an overly confident grin. “So you think I’m a top?”

Bellamy looks to the crescent moon, Cheshire-cheesing at him bold and brilliant in what is likely an expression of utter delight at his misery. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily, before unbuckling the helmet and shoving it into his almost-date’s chest. “Get out. Get out of my driveway.”

The man raises a questioning brow, lips pursed in a lingering, mischievous smile.

“Seriously, Radiohead, into the night,” he commands with a flicking gesture of his hands, and the terrible vampire owl-man chuckles, cranks the throttle and rumbles off down the street, into the arms of his terminally ill booty call and hopefully out of Bellamy’s life forever.

Bellamy hikes back up the sloped driveway, finger flicking furiously through his contacts and parking heavily on ‘Princess’.

“Clarke, the only way we can salvage this clearly broken friendship is if you promise me I never have to see a certain ‘well-meaning sweetheart’ ever again.”

“Hello to you too, and _‘jaded’,_ I did say _‘jaded’_.”

Bellamy toes his shoes off behind the door with a grimace, slumping against it with a sigh of defeat. She did say ‘jaded’.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit gets wholesome before it gets ugly, tune in soon for both in chapter two if anyone's interested. thanks so much for reading! tell me ur feelings xoxo


	2. all those evenings out in the garden

_April 15th, 2015_

Buttermilk flowers are scattered through the velvet ballroom- Lexa wanted to go extravagant- and the cherry wood of the stage creaks as Bellamy shifts his weight to lean towards the brides, microphone squeezed in a white-knuckle grip as Clarke beams at him. “You are one of the most important women in my life, Clarke, and we’ve been through a lot together. You’ve always been there for me, and I’m so happy-”

Lexa snorts behind her hands, and Clarke elbows her questioningly as Bellamy stops, and the crowd murmurs lightly about something that he can’t pick out from the sea of hushed voices and snickers. Suddenly, the boards of the stage steps croak in surprise as John _fucking_ Murphy tumbles up them, champagne swirling dangerously in his glass, threatening to become a travesty. He darts a hand out and covers Bellamy’s tightly-wound fingers with his own, pressing his lips against the mic to slur-shout, “Congratulations to the happy couple!” as the mic screams over him with alarmed-sounding feedback from the closeness and volume of his voice.

The brides and their respective guests break into giggles as Bellamy shoves at Murphy’s shoulder, murmuring “Get out of here, you already gave your speech- give me that- Murphy!” He practically wails as some of Murphy’s golden champagne sloshes over the rim and onto Bellamy’s suit, his navy tie with the stripes that finally got out of the house.

*******

_December 24th, 2015_

Lexa meanders through the red-and-green blur of jinglebell-clad bodies to hustle the video camera into Murphy’s hands, who’s pre-occupied with chatting up the heavily-tattooed caterer, a small woman with sandy-hair tied back in a bandanna, tray of hors d'oeuvres held loosely between two gloved hands.

“Back off, Murphy, she’s working,” Lexa scolds, and Murphy pouts as he snatches up the video camera. “Carry this around,” she commands, taking off to the kitchen and leaving the other man to weave through the party-goers to find an entertaining subject to hassle.

He detects a blur of golden hair across the room and dodges arms and legs, plates and cups to reach her, crouching in front of her with the video camera zeroing in on Clarke’s round stomach.

“Bun in the oven! Bun in the oven!” Murphy shouts into the camera, and Clarke laughs brightly, jinglebells on her elf hat clinking softly as she does so. He reaches out to pat her belly, narrating “Few more months of a’cookin’!” as Lexa’s voice calls from somewhere behind him.

“Please don’t smack my unborn infant, Murphy!”

He turns the camera onto his own face, lens zoomed in terrifyingly on just his lips as he hisses, “The bloodbath is upon us.”

“Hey!” Clarke shouts in feigned alarm, and Murphy scatters.

“I mean the miracle of childbirth is magnificent!” he crows as he dodges the white-chocolate cookie she launches at the back of his retreating form, tumbling through guests to settle the camera’s focus on two more familiar faces that he must heckle before the night ends.

“What do you want, Murphy?” Bellamy sighs, but Murphy can hardly feel offended, what with the curly white Santa-beard looped around Bellamy’s ears with thin strings, crimson hat topped with a cotton snowball smothering his curls.

His eyes flicker up momentarily, looking wary, and Murphy clocks the movement to follow with his own eyes, finding a tuft of mistletoe strung above them. His cheeks threaten to redden at the implication, but he takes a miniscule step back to avoid a tragedy, aims his camera at the dangling leaves. “What do we have here?” he announces, and the mechanic in front of him laughs fearfully.

“Who put oregano on the ceiling?” Raven teases, feigning obliviousness as Bellamy grips his plastic cup dotted with snowflakes, neck darkening bashfully as Murphy points the lens his way, grinning something evil.

“Go on, you two,” Murphy urges, and Bellamy rolls his eyes exaggeratedly.

“You’re way too excited about this, creep,” he insults, and Murphy responds appropriately by puckering his lips, making wet kissy noises as he switches the view of the camera between the two of them.

“His wank bank must be dusty, we can pity him,” Raven muses, eyes sparkling with mischief. Murphy scoffs indignantly.

“I have standards!” he insists, right before planting a heavy hand on Bellamy’s shoulder to shove him forward, who relents with a sigh cut-short from a quick peck onto Raven’s lips. Bellamy mouths ‘You’re an asshole’ into the camera and continues nursing his drink with a bored expression as Raven laughs and slams the device’s branched-out screen closed.

*******

_March 19th, 2016_

“Hello, baby! Look at you,” he coos, bouncing the little bundle of footie pajamas on his knee, warming beer left forgotten beside the lawn chair.

She’s a spitting image of Clarke and a little something else, but the wispy little blonde hairs and the button nose are undeniably hers. Her pajamas are dotted with little pink hearts, and she cranes her head to the side as Bellamy fixes one of the tiny buttons that’s come undone. He follows her eyes to see- ugh- _him,_  sauntering towards them, making grabby hands as he approaches.

“No, Murphy, it’s my turn. I just got her,” Bellamy protests, clutching the baby to his chest possessively and pivoting away from him on the lawn chair.

Murphy holds up his hands and backs off as if he’s relenting, but Bellamy eyes him warily as he starts to circle the chair like a vulture.

“Give me a min- hey!” Bellamy shouts in alarm as hands come down on either side of his head to snatch the baby up and out of his gentle hold on her, and Murphy carries her under her armpits as he waddles off with his prize.

“Support her butt!” Lexa calls from the grill, pointing her spatula at them menacingly as Bellamy chases Murphy and child around the yard half-heartedly.

Murphy plants a hand under the baby’s bottom and lifts her up and down experimentally, testing her weight like she’s a dumbbell and not a real life baby.

“Careful!” Bellamy nags when he catches up, knowing he won’t be able to snatch the baby back without getting pounced or spat on.

“It’s okay, she’s like a little football,” Murphy decides, tossing the baby up into the air a few times, gently, but enough to make Lexa slap the rusty bars on the grill warningly.

“Baby! It’s a _baby!”_

Clarke emerges from the house with a tray for the hamburgers, and flaps it at the two men to get their attention. “She’s in a puke-y phase, she’s gonna blow if you keep tossing her around like that!”

“It’s okay, she loves it, don’t you Tia?” Murphy insists, and brings the tot in close to smush their cheeks together, looking at Lexa with a squished grin. “You’re the only girl I’ll ever shave for,” he says, nodding seriously at the tot, who gurgles back in acknowledgment of his efforts.

“Speaking of which, why didn’t you bring Emori?” Clarke says curiously, breaking a piece of a hamburger off to pop it into her mouth, and Lexa smacks her hand away when her greedy fingers make a second attempt.

Murphy shrugs, poking the baby’s sides as his face smooths out into something more neutral. Bellamy feels awkward hovering now, and shuffles off to the lawn chair with his tail between his legs to retrieve his condensation-coated beer.

“We ended that. Wasn’t working out.”

Clarke pouts her bottom lip sympathetically. “Why not? You two were starting to get serious, too! You never get serious!”

Murphy clenches his jaw, Bellamy can’t help but notice. “Too similar, no anchor, getting out of control. Well, those were her reasons. I thought we were having fun.”

“I’m sorry, Murph,” Clarke sighs, forming a little heart with her hands that he answers with an appreciative nod, before heading back into the house to occupy herself with something else. “Lexa, babe! Don’t forget to tip the castle boys!” she calls over her shoulder as she goes blindly up the steps of the back porch, and Lexa huffs in annoyance as she eyes the rowdy teenagers setting up the bouncy-castle across the lawn.

Bellamy tears his eyes away from the unfamiliar downtrodden look on Murphy’s face as he bounces Tia in his arms, staring blankly at the picket fence, and follows Clarke into the house to escape from it.

-

“So we started taking Costia to this new family practice,” Clarke begins unprompted as Bellamy steps through the open door into the kitchen, and he hums to signify that he’s listening whether he has the choice to or not.

“And there’s this doctor there, Dr. Martin.... she’s very cute, no ring,” she hints as she noisily retrieves a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge. “I start a conversation with her nurse and-”

“No,” Bellamy interrupts, pulling glasses from overhead cabinets. “We agreed that you have terrible taste and can never ever set me up with anyone ever again.” He checks over his shoulder for Lexa, just in case.

Clarke frowns, spooning some extra sugar out from a ceramic jar. “I’ve always given you good dates, you’re just too picky!”

“Okay, shall we recall Roma, the hairdresser, only talked about shampoo brands for the entirety of dinner?” he reminds, and Clarke lowers her head in shame.

“I knew you had a thing for confident brunettes... I-”

“Raven? As if that wasn’t incredibly against the rules?”

“She’s the most confident brunette I know! Go big or go home!” Clarke defends herself indignantly, clacking the tablespoon against the rim of the pitcher as little crystals of sugar cling to the edges of the glass.

Bellamy sets the glasses he’s procured so far onto the counter and crosses his arms as he leans against it. “I won’t even get into the Murphy Catastrophe of 2014.”

“Confident brunets! The many beautiful women weren’t working, I had to pull out the big guns!” she whines, stirring the sugar into the lemonade a little frantically as a smile twitches on her lips.

“You’re supposed to be my best friend, and you set me up with a man who goes by a dog’s name,” Bellamy scolds, and Clarke barks out a startled laugh as she cuts a fresh lemon into sunny little wedges.

He can’t help but grin back. She may be ruining his romantic life, but God, he loves her.

-

“’Tip the castle boys’, she says, even though they showed up an hour late and I did all the work myself,” Lexa growls, and Murphy snorts as he follows her, stomping up to the two teens slapboxing by the now-inflated bouncy castle.

“Don’t turn the air off when there’s kids inside,” one of them directs as Lexa shoves a few crinkled dollars into his hand, pushing his jet black hair out of his reddish eyes. The other boy giggles lazily and stumbles heavily into his friend’s side.

Murphy narrows his eyes. “Are you guys high?”

The shorter of the two blinks quickly a few times. “That’s illegal.”

Lexa narrows her eyes as the taller one pushes his goggles further up on his head, cheeks puffing with a bitten down laugh. “Hand it over.”

 _“But-”_ they begin to whine in unison, when Lexa’s voice grows commanding and serious, suddenly.

“You want me to call the police?” she threatens, and Murphy has to cover his contorting mouth with the hand not wrapped around the baby. _'Hello, officer, thank you for responding so fast, two sixteen-year-olds in my backyard have a baggie of the marijuana the size of my pinkie toe'._

The lanky one sighs, reaching into the pocket of his ‘Earth Day’ shirt with a pout, and Lexa snatches the wimpy little bag from him with a flourish. “Now get out of here,” she demands, and they hang their heads as they make their way out of the backyard, defeated.

“I _paid_ for that, bro,” Murphy hears as the one in the orange hoodie shoves his lanky friend harshly, and they tumble to their bikes in a flurry of sharp elbows and bickering.

He eyes Lexa, amused, as she pockets the pathetic little stash of weed. “You gonna get lit with your wife, child and mortgage?”

“Once a year, Clarke and I like to remind ourselves that we’re still young.”

Murphy scoffs, tossing the bubbling baby up and catching her as they walk. “Once a year?”

The woman to his left laughs softly as they make their way back to the house, shuffling through the grass. “Fine. Twice a year.”

“Oh, you’re _bad,”_   Murphy teases, and Lexa grins, a rare occurrence, as she hustles him with her elbow.

“Careful, I’m with child,” he protests, smacking her arm away so he can toss the baby up again, because he likes the gummy little smile she gives when she’s in the air.

“I’m serious, you keep throwing her around like that and she’s gonna erupt,” Lexa reminds, taking a cautious step away from them.

Murphy gives her a questioning look. “Erupt? She’s a baby, not a volcano. She loves it. Don’t you, Mount Tia? Don’t you?” he babbles, as a tight smile stretches across the infant’s face.

“What does _that_ face mean?” Murphy coos, holding her up as her face continues to contort strangely.

“I warned you.”

-

_“Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”_

Clarke scrubs Murphy’s front with a wet washcloth, arms trembling as she laughs, Lexa reduced to a heap of silent giggles with her head against the sugar-coated counter.

He pushes away from Clarke to shove his face under the faucet, hair and clothes gathering tap water that’s splashing onto the counters as he rubs frantically at his cheek.

“Don’t worry kiddo, sometimes when I look at Uncle Murphy I throw up too,” Bellamy says, patting the gurgling baby’s head as she slaps her chubby little hands against the high chair’s tray.

“Hey, Tia, that’s what an asshole looks like,” Murphy says, jerking his glistening chin at Bellamy, and Lexa collects herself enough to wave her hands around in a gesture that could only translate to ‘please don’t talk about assholes in front of my one year old’.

Clarke pulls it together, giggles fading into sunny sighs as she tosses the dishrag into the sink and peels Murphy’s soaked flannel off of him like it’s a raincoat. For baby vomit.

“Go upstairs and fish out one of my sleep shirts or something before everyone gets here,” Clarke directs, and Murphy turns on her with a quirked, thick brow.

“Are they gonna fit me?”

“Yeah, Clarke, are they gonna fit over all of Murphy’s numerous, huge muscles?” Bellamy pipes up from the corner, and Murphy growls from under the washcloth covering his face.

Lexa fiddles with her camera for a moment before ushering the two of them to the sides of Costia’s high chair. “Okay, neutral corners, all smiles, baby’s birthday, remember?” she placates, as Clarke slips a fluffy little party hat onto the baby’s tiny marble of a head.

The two men crouch on either side of the babbling baby, grubby fingers fishing determinedly for a piece of mushy cereal, and smile tightly into the camera.

“Say cheese!”

“Your wrinkles are going to look gorgeous in this, like the Grand Canyon but in thousands,” Murphy hisses through smiling teeth. Bellamy extends a flattened palm behind the chair and bats Murphy’s ear like a baseball just as the flash blinds the three of them.

_Click._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gotta love the fluff. gotta love the banter
> 
> next chapter is sad, u have been warned


	3. the moon in the arms of the sky

_May 22nd, 2016_

“Five more minutes,” he whines, tangled in a chrysalis of milky-colored sheets, albeit kicking at them like a child. “You always leave so early.”

“Duty calls,” Murphy grumbles, shimmying into a long pair of khakis that may admittedly be a little too tight for his age, putting his weight on the edge of the dresser to stay upright as he wiggles determinedly.

“We cook soups for a living,” Miller reminds him, rubbing furiously at the morning-stuff collected in the corners of his eyes (the caruncles, or at least that’s what Murphy said it meant during Scrabble last week).

“And sandwiches,” the brunet corrects, pointing a firm finger at the man in his bed after forcing his pants’ zipper to rise and shine. Miller can’t help the snort that escapes him when Murphy turns around to fish out a uniform shirt.

“Do you need me to take you pants shopping, Apple Bottom Jeans?” he offers, finally tumbling off of the edge of the bed to tug on yesterday’s jeans, left crumbled and abandoned on the bedside floor.

“Like what you see?” Murphy teases, abruptly squatting with his elbows on his knees to display the object of Miller’s amusement.

“I’m concerned about your circulation, to say the least,” he says, and is met with a playful shove as Murphy frees a hand from buttoning his blindingly yellow City of Soups uniform polo to push at his shoulder. “Can I grab one of those?” he asks, already reaching into Murphy’s drawer to take a shirt for himself.

“Jaha’s going to have your ass if you wear jeans into work,” Murphy warns as he looks him over. “Start bringing uniform clothes over.”

Miller bumps his hip, brows furrowed as he unrolls the sleeves of his borrowed top. “How about I just move in?”

“In your dreams, Miller.”

*******

“Look, it’s fine, just-” Bellamy knocks the sewing machine with an opened palm, pauses, and hits it again. His heartbeat quickens a little as he smacks it a second time, and the machine fails to croak back to life in its usual fashion.

Octavia sighs, taking the pencil from behind her ear to scratch her head with the graphite tip. “I’ve been telling you Bell, just let me freeze some of the customer discounts this month and use the extra income for a new machine. We can’t rely on this-” She cracks her knuckles against the machine’s hand wheel. “-Dinosaur, anymore.”

He glances sheepishly up at her from his seat, knowing she’s right, and relents with a nod of acquiescence that she takes as permission to whisk off to her computer at the front desk, nestled into the exposed brick wall cozily.

He busies himself with cleaning his workspace of fabric scraps as the clicking and clacking of fingers on a keyboard fills the room. He pauses for a moment, hand on his worktable as he looks thoughtfully around the little shop. “We could use a radio. For the atmosphere,” he muses, and Octavia halts in her typing momentarily.

“Looks like a certain curly-haired angel has an appointment today, isn’t that so?” she calls in a knowing voice, and Bellamy’s cheeks darken as she spins around in her swivel chair to cock her head at him.

“She’s just a customer,” Bellamy argues, eyes flickering away from his sister’s unwavering stare to the scissors he’s begun sharpening.

“That old man with the sandwich shop is just a customer too, but you don’t look at him that way, getting all _charming_ and _smolder-y,_ "Octavia teases, drawing her words out and batting her eyelashes at him mockingly.

“It’s called customer service,” Bellamy says defensively, and Octavia swivels back around to face her monitor.

“Oh, I’d bet you’d like to service her, alright.”

 _“O!”_ Bellamy shouts in humiliation, cheeks darkening as she smirks at someone through the mannequins in the shop window, and the front door creaks open with chime of the tinkling doorbell above it.

“Welcome to Aurora’s Tailor Shop,” Octavia greets out of obligation, even at the familiar face smiling sweetly and slackly as she approaches Bellamy’s worktable with her patchwork Armageddon of a coat.

“This old thing again?” Bellamy asks, taking it from her hands and stretching it out over his cleared space. “I’ll just buy you a new jacket if you’re hard on cash right now,” he jokes, and Gina laughs softly, crossing her arms to peer down at the unraveling patches.

“It has sentimental value,” she argues, and Bellamy shakes his head as he inspects his own stitching.

“So did my dead goldfish, but I know when enough is enough.”

She gasps, covering her growing smile with a hand as a breathy little laugh escapes her. He dares to glance up for a split second, and she tilts her head as they meet eyes. “You’re funny,” she says matter-of-factly, and Bellamy pointedly ignores Octavia, who's turned around to mouth _“You’re funny,”_ back at him teasingly, eyelashes fluttering with her hands tucked together next to her cheek.

“Anyways, thanks again, Tailor-man. I’ll come back ‘round tomorrow to pick it up, usual time,” she says, fishing around in her purse as she drifts to the front desk. Bellamy tries to follow Octavia’s guidance and not watch her wistfully as she leaves, so he laser-focuses on positioning the coat under his machine’s needle, being sure to appear as if it’s going to take the usual day’s work and not the five minutes it would actually consume for him to reattach two haphazard patches in the hopes that she’ll come back tomorrow.

“To think I’m still calling you _Tailor-man_ after you’ve mended my poor little coat, what, twelve times now?”

He can’t help but laugh at that- he loves that nickname- but she looks at him seriously when he picks his head up to smile at her. “Bellamy. It’s Bellamy.”

She seems satisfied, hiking her bag up onto her shoulder and sauntering to the door in that leisurely way of hers, and he waits for the soft tinkle of the bell before allowing his eyes to flicker up momentarily, to watch her leave. She pauses, hand on the door, and catches him watching her go. “I’m sure your receptionist has my number, you know, if anything goes wrong with the mending.”

Bellamy can’t help the smile that splits his face at the implication, and Gina grins radiantly as she steps out to hold the door open for an entering customer. “Just in case.”

He doesn’t pull his eyes away until she’s out of view, past the door, the mannequins in the spotless window, down the street.

 _“Excellent_ customer service, Bellamy,” Octavia quips in her receptionist voice, handing a repaired garment in its respective paper over the counter to the customer.

Bellamy flicks the bird at her discreetly, and she returns it from under the desk expertly, where the customer can’t see the exchange.

*******

The humidity of the kitchen is almost overwhelming, and Murphy has half a mind to yell, _'Who’s making fajitas?'_ but he’s already hated enough by the other staff to reconsider it.

He dresses the bowl with tender love and care, and another sprig of parsley, and nudges the sandwich aside to make room for his soup on the plate before he slides it to the serving counter, and tucks its respective ticket partially beneath it for the server.

When he wipes his hands on his apron and glances around for the lack of tickets, the other employees are hard at work with their soups. And sandwiches. He scans the room for something to make himself useful, and finds the trash in the garbage can nearing a precarious height. He crosses the kitchen in a few long strides and plants a foot on the side of the can to trap it next to the wall, giving himself some leverage as he tugs the huge bag from its snug fit in the garbage can and tries not to grunt like an animal as it pops free and swings against him, crashing awkwardly into his stomach like a foul-smelling wrecking ball. He ties a haphazard knot and heaves it over his shoulder, kicking the back door in to carry it out to the dumpster.

The sunlight snaking into the wide alley takes a minute to adjust to, leaving Murphy shuffling blindly to the dump, the smell of tobacco smoke and food waste masking his senses harshly.

“Hey, Gordon Ramsay, everyone can see you adding extra cayenne to the crab bisque,” a familiar voice rings out, and Murphy blinks a few times, allowing his eyesight to regain focus on the figure leaning against the wall.

Miller takes another drag of his cigarette, and if Murphy had it in him he might insult him for the edgy pose, tell him the Greasers most likely didn’t don aprons covered in mayonnaise stains and spilled tomato soup, but he’s just not in the mood.

“What? Are you gonna snitch on me? _‘Mr. Jaha, Murphy’s trying to make our food edible!’_ ” Murphy mocks in a whiny voice, tugging the trash bag from his shoulder as Miller blows another cloud of smoke at him, one that dissipates before its curling, wispy hands can reach his face.

The other man fights a laugh as he watches Murphy position himself sideways, expertly, like he’s taking the plate in a major league baseball game. He can’t help but choke on his next breath as the scruffy man winds up and slams the the trash bag into the slot in the dumpster, knot untying with the momentum and spitting freed food scraps at the unsuspecting batter as it goes. Murphy crouches to pick up some of the trash with gloved hands, squatting and waddling awkwardly as he fishes tomato slices out of the cracks in the alley pavement.

“We’re a backstreet sandwich shop that barely passes the health inspections, not Hell’s Kitchen,” Miller reminds him as he watches Murphy stretching on his toes to shove the trash bag fighting for its life fully into the dumpster. “Everyone else here has let their dreams wither and die, join the club, Iron Chef,” he finishes, putting his cigarette out on the wall and flicking the butt into a puddle of something that’s hopefully rainwater, before he elbows the kitchen door open and slips back inside.

Murphy leans heavily against the dumpster with a sigh, letting his head fall against the brown-streaked metal with a pitiful _‘thunk’_. He flicks a piece of wilted lettuce from his shoulder, and eyes a pigeon that flits down to peck and nibble at a half-eaten sandwich that had tumbled out of Murphy’s trash bag. The little pigeon pauses, looks thoughtfully at the sandwich, and then scuttles off, presumably to search for a different meal.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t it eat either,” Murphy sighs, and trudges half-heartedly back into the sweltering kitchen of dead dreams and soups. And sandwiches.

*******

The seven o’clock news flickers on the box television, casting ticker reds and mugshot whites and late-night scene report blues across the walls of the den, and Bellamy can’t be bothered to unmute it. It’s never anything but traffic and storms, shootings and car wrecks.

He crinkles the little yellow sticky-note between his fingers, decorated with a ten-digit number punctuated by a winking face in his sister’s curled, flowery handwriting.

What if she wasn’t implying anything at all? What if he’s over-analyzing things, what if she really meant to only call if there was an issue with the coat, what if, what if, what if-

What if he regrets not calling?

He dials the numbers before he has a chance to change his mind, each dial beep frying another nerve-ending in his fingers, his head, but then a gentle tide washes over him when she picks up on the second ring with a soft, lazy “Hello?”

“Hi, Gina. I was just calling to- oh- it’s Bellamy, by the way. Your tai- the tailor,” he answers, realizing he has no excuse to save him if she asks why he’s calling her in the evening, then rationalizes that maybe he could just pluck a button off of her coat to save himself if needed.

“Oh, hey Bellamy,” she says sweetly, and he allows himself to fall back and sink into the couch with an inaudible sigh of relief.

“So-” he starts, when in classic life fashion, his phone beeps once, signifying him of another incoming call. “Sorry, one second, I’m getting another call- sorry, this is embarrassing-” he rambles, accidentally switching the call the moment he hears her say “That’s alright.” Bellamy curses internally, picks up on the other caller with a bitter attitude.

_“What?”_

“Is this Bellamy Blake?” comes a voice that he doesn’t recognize.

“Yeah, this is him.”

“You’re going to want to come down to the Arkadia Memorial Hospital. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

The sticky note flutters unceremoniously to the floor.

-

The pale violet carpet crunches uncomfortably as Bellamy paces, Officer David Miller tracking his movements, following him awkwardly, voice tinged with tired desperation for answers.

He looks sickly under the hospital’s fluorescents, and he thinks he might have to snatch the trashcan from the kid turning blue in the waiting room.

“The officer at the scene found your name and number on an insurance card in her wallet. Do you think you could get me a name for the nearest next of kin?”

“Yeah, Clarke’s mom, um...” he grabs the back of a waiting room chair, arms trembling enough to shake the entire row of seats. “How did you say the car flipped again? It flipped when they hit the-”

“Do you want to sit down?” the officer asks, reaching a careful hand to guide him by the shoulder into a chair, and Bellamy shrugs him off roughly. He scrubs a hand over his face as he looks into the parking lot from the looming entrance windows, watches a woman pushing a stroller through the doors with a cellphone trapped between her ear and her shoulder.

“A baby. They have a baby, a little girl, Costia? Was she in the car?”

“No. She was in the care of a minor, a babysitter, at the time of the accident, so the officers placed her with CPS for the night.”

“CPS, why?”

“They take cases like this.”

“Cases like what?” Bellamy presses.

Officer Miller meets his eyes apologetically. “Orphaned children.”

Bellamy lets out a sob as he covers his mouth, no time to process this, to process anything, when the hospital door is kicked in loudly, slamming against the doorstops with a thrumming rattle. John _fucking_ Murphy storms in, a whirlwind, fists curled tight as he approaches the front desk like a bloodthirsty gladiator.

“Murphy,” Bellamy hears someone say, broken and wet, desperate, someone who sounds awfully like himself but... _wrong._

The younger man turns at the sound of his name, face paling as he catches Bellamy’s eye. He approaches, lips parted to ask a question, _that_ question, the all-too-familiar one that he doesn’t know how to form. The officer clenches his jaw and looks away from them.

Murphy blinks up at him with the saddest eyes Bellamy's ever seen, for answers, for something. Bellamy shakes his head, tears spilling over as a sudden, cracked groan of anguish tears out of him, pulling his body to the floor, and he vaguely registers being pulled into lean arms the moment his legs threaten to fold, the smell of parsley and gasoline enveloping him in a cloud. He feels something wet seep through to the skin of his shoulder, but Murphy doesn’t let go.

“I’m so sorry."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im mean


	4. the walls of his heart

_May 22nd, 2016_

His heart race slows as the headlights illuminate familiar passing hydrangeas and disturbed gravel, and he eyes the front porch warily, as if they might walk outside any minute now, as if this was all a stupid, terrible prank. The front porch light is still on, a bulb flickering golden like a beacon for the tiny moths flitting around it, and Murphy can’t help the warm prickling in his eyes at the thought that it seems like everything in the world came home that night except them.

But he can’t cry, not now, not in front of Bellamy. Not in front of Bellamy, who finally pulled it together, who nudged Murphy toward his car, who drove them all the way from the hospital to Clarke and Lexa’s, whose arms are trembling as he grips the wheel, whose eyes are cold when he glances over to see what Murphy’s looking at.

The younger man takes it as permission to speak. “I could have drove.”

“Driven,” Bellamy mutters, no ounce of his usual fiery delight at correcting Murphy. It feels like a nail being driven into his stomach. “And I think we’ve had enough car wrecks tonight.”

It’s not a tasteful joke. It’s something Murphy would say. Bellamy looks sick after he says it, puts the car in park and sits back for the first time since they’d pulled themselves off of the waiting room floor and walked five feet apart from each other to the parking lot, stared at Murphy’s motorcycle like it personally murdered their friends.

Murphy gives a fleeting look at the man in the driver’s seat, and upon realizing his eyes are still dry, jaw clenched tightly and fists pressing against his thighs, he’s furious. He hates him. Fucking cry. He wants him to fucking cry. He wants permission to fucking cry, goddamn him.

Murphy unlocks his door and shoves his way out of the black car harshly, slams the door behind him hard enough to make the hubcaps fall off and the metal frame rattle in fear. He’s halfway up the jeweled little pathway to the front door-- stepping stones wrapped around sprinklings of fishbowl pebbles in every color, glimmering cheerfully as if their existence isn’t to simply be stepped on, as if their maker isn’t lying dead under a sheet, blonde waves spilling out from under it and holy _fuck_ he should be used to this by now-- when he hears the quiet closing of a car door and unsure footsteps tracing after him.

Murphy doesn’t wait for him, starts digging around under the little stone raccoon statuette next to the doormat, and fishes out a spare key, dulled by dust and disuse.

There’s a soft noise behind his back, something of a snort or a tired laugh. Murphy blinks over his shoulder to find Bellamy with his arms crossed, a smile on his lips that doesn’t quite reach his eyes like it normally does. “You shouldn’t know about that.”

“What, bothered that she trusts me as much as you?”

Bellamy’s smile falls slowly as the playful look on Murphy’s face falters, his thoughtless use of present-tense striking something all too real back into place. The brunet shakily unlocks the door, everything trembling like he’s on a fault line, and they step into the foyer gingerly, cautiously, like it’s the Buckingham Palace and not a dirt-tracked entry room. The hall is lined with abandoned baby toys: a green teething ring, a rubber panda bear, a foam sword that Clarke begged Lexa not to buy for a one year old. There’s a basket of clean laundry teetering on the edge of a table by the stairs, raincoats and tiny jackets and a paint-stained smock hooked on the back of the door, the lamp still on, everything left behind in their lives stone-still and waiting for them to come back. Murphy’s paralyzed. He’d never thought he’d feel the need to apologize to a laundry basket.

*******

“I don’t understand why we can’t just see her now! No, listen, I don’t give a damn about your protocol- yeah, I’ll be at this number. Yeah, screw you.”

Bellamy thumbs at the red button glowing fiercely from his dying phone, slams the device against the cushions by Murphy’s hip and pulls a leg back like he’s going to kick at the nearest object, an angry tick of his that Murphy’s noticed, but slowly folds as he realizes where he is. It took Murphy enough willpower and guilt-banishing just to sit on the couch, let alone destroy anything. Everything in the empty house feels like a sacred monument, it feels sacrilegious to lay his terrible, godless hands on anything.

“They won’t do anything until eight a.m. tomorrow,” he grumbles, face shifting from fury to disappointment as he leans on the television, head in his arms.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Murphy placates, and Bellamy lifts his head as if to argue with him. “They always took good enough care of me.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, but it shut Bellamy up, the other man tilting his head and looking at him strangely, with something like sadness and curiosity wrapped up in ‘fuck you regardless’. Murphy knows how he hates to be reminded that Murphy is a person. He hates it too.

“We can sleep here just in case they call early, yeah?” he mutters, and Bellamy’s still speechless, turning over new information about Murphy in his mental file cabinet: fucked childhood, possibly rational, capable of comforting others, maybe only 95% asshole. “Take the guestroom,” Murphy offers, waving his hand lazily as he hunches forward as if preparing to stand. Bellamy nods wordlessly, drifting to the den’s doorway.

“You can have their-”

“No, thanks,” Murphy cuts him off strictly, waving a hand over the couch as an explanation. He’s not sleeping in the dead people’s bed. No.

Bellamy’s face softens as he watches Murphy tug a blanket carefully out of the wicker basket in the living room’s corner, as he swings his arms up and out to let the flowery quilt expand gracelessly in the air and flutter out over the couch. The young man settles on top of it instead of under it, methodical and purposeful in a way that Bellamy doesn’t understand, and looks almost breakable as he wiggles around to get comfortable.

He can’t help but think about those arms, the ones tucked over his stomach as he stares at the black abyss of the television’s bubbled screen, wrapped around him and all his grief and his thrashing, pulling him to the floor as people stared at the pile of limbs and cold skin trusting the violet hospital carpet to not swallow them whole just to shut them up. Murphy whispered hushed, meaningless reassurances in his ear. _“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay you’reokayyou’reokayyou’reokay.”_

He lied, but his breath was soft and kind and it was more than he’d ever expected from the man.

“Thank you, Murphy.”

“Okay,” he says, nodding against the arm of the couch, looking lost.

“Goodnight.”

“Okay.”

*******

_May 23rd, 2016_

Gray sun filters in from the window, silhouettes Bellamy where he sits at the table, slick maple scattered with dandelion place-mats surrounding his folded arms as he flicks through his phone. Murphy pads into the kitchen, socked feet scuffling quietly against the tile before he stops behind a tall dining table chair to peer at Bellamy. The man ignores him, dark half-rings under his eyes like they were forged in iron. He must not have slept last night. Murphy can’t confidently say whether he himself was awake or not.

He clutches the back of the chair, sad eyes flickering to the pots and plates still piled up naively in the sink. He isn’t sure if he wants to pull out the chair, imagines Bellamy, hurting, unable to kick furniture, leaping across the table, pouncing on him and tearing his throat out like a panther. “Anyone call?”

Bellamy looks up, finally. His eyes were warm last night, when Murphy told him to sleep. He’d never had those eyes on him, not that pair, not like that. It made Murphy’s stomach leap into his throat. He doesn’t receive lot of warm eyes. But now? They’re empty, hollow hazelnuts, if Murphy had to put a metaphor to them. They're there, but they're not.

He sits down. Bellamy huffs, the distinct chime of his phone locking ringing across the table between them, and looks somewhere past Murphy, pointedly.

“Their lawyer,” he mutters, shoving his chair out and moving to the doorway. “He wants to talk to us, he’s coming by later.”

Murphy looks at his empty chair. “Have you ate?”

“Eaten.”

A door shuts hard somewhere down the hall. Murphy reaches into the fruit bowl in the center of the table and pushes his nail into the orange’s skin as a rough, shattering sound echoes back to the kitchen from whatever room Bellamy’s audibly tearing apart. Murphy flicks a piece of the orange onto the table.

At least some things are still normal.

*******

“Clarke was family, she will be missed dearly,” the lawyer says earnestly, looking at something in his briefcase before closing it, revealing a kind face. Despite his honest eyes, Murphy scoffs at the empty-sounding formality. The man scratches his chin as he inspects the paper under his hand, seemingly ignoring Murphy, which infuriates the latter, of course.

“You both must have very many questions,” Mr. Kane, the lawyer, says. His dark hair is slicked back, framing the kind face of a well-aged fifty-something-year-old, salt and pepper beard giving him that necessary fatherly, wise old owl look under wide-frame glasses.

“Costia, right now, mostly. What happens to her?” Bellamy asks, always the first to step up to the plate and swing right to the point, whereas Murphy can’t figure out what he’s expected to be most concerned about in the tragic death of two of his best friends and the orphaning of their beloved child.

“Okay, well-” he begins, clearing his throat in a way that seems more for effect rather than effectiveness in the clearing of one’s throat. “I’ve already arranged for her transfer. The foster family that she was with last night will bring her to CPS. They feel she’ll adjust best in her own environment, so first she needs to be picked up and brought here.”

He looks between the two of them thoughtfully, and Bellamy narrows his eyes, lips parting to ask a question about what he doesn’t even know.

“And, uh- who does that?” Murphy asks, eyebrows cocked questioningly. Mr. Kane stares at him for a moment, looking slightly amused.

“I’m sorry, did Clarke and Lexa talk to you about their guardianship arrangements?”

“No,” they blurt at the same time. Bellamy gives Murphy a withering look.

Kane looks bewildered and a little entertained, maybe too entertained for the circumstances. “Well, in preparing their will, we were talking about who would care for Costia in the unlikely event that they should both die.”

Murphy practically rolls his eyes back into his head at the word _unlikely._

Kane shuffles his papers around, again, more for a theatrical, stalling effect. Murphy juts his head forward and waves a cupped hand towards himself. “The suspense is killing me.”

The lawyer ignores him. “And they named... you,” he says softly, looking between the two men. “Both of you.”

Murphy and Bellamy stare at him blankly for a minute, before the latter leans forward, hands planted on the table as the former is left staring blankly, pallid. “I’m sorry, they picked _both_ of us? _Together?”_

“I know this overwhelming, and _believe_ me, I tried to advise them against it,” he mutters, almost bitterly. “But there are other options. You can say no. Because this is a big deal, this is a child.”

Bellamy sits down. “This is a _commitment,”_ the lawyer finishes, folding his hands.

Bellamy looks at Murphy, who’s still staring blankly at the china cabinet gleaming tauntingly behind the lawyer, looking like he’s seen a fucking ghost. Or he is the ghost. He could pass for the ghost.

“Can you give us a minute?”

*******

Murphy shoulders past him in the doorway and collapses on the front stoop, lithe fingers crooked tight and clutching the edge of the brick on the porch stair beneath him.

Bellamy thumps his head against one of the mighty columns, fists curled in his pockets as he watches Murphy slump over and latch his terrifying stare onto something in the distance in the way he does right before a nuclear meltdown.

“What the fuck?” he voices for Bellamy, and the latter sighs, scrubbing harshly at his eyes as the column presses a red bruise into the center of his forehead.

“What the _fuck?”_ he repeats, palms slapping loudly against his knees as he hunches over like he’s going to wretch.

_“What-”_

“Shut the hell up for a minute, would you?”

Murphy shoots him a nasty look, brows scrunched and jaw shifting so far left it may as well fly off its hinges and spin around his skull like a merry-go-round.

“Let me think,” Bellamy explains, a palm held out in a way that he knows Murphy considers condescending, which only serves to further infuriate the brunet. He hisses through his teeth as he twists his torso round to buck his shoulders and head at Bellamy.

“What’s there to think about? You’re a fucking mental patient if you’re seriously considering we raise a goddamn kid together,” he snaps, and Bellamy gives him a bored look as Murphy inhales, barreling on. “Why don’t we share their bedroom, split the mortgage payments between our cozy little salaries, invite our darling friends over for brunch. Oh, please _do_ remember to set out the cheese platter, maybe some fucking cocktail weenies, you absolute delusional asshole!”

“Cocktail weenies,” Bellamy repeats in awe. Murphy glowers.

“I’ll put you in a grave.”

Bellamy’s grin slips.

Murphy looks away, tracing a pine tree towering over them in the neat grass of the front lawn.

The raven-haired man moves, cautiously, to sit next to him on the steps. He isn’t sure what compels him to do such a thing, such an out of place thing; perhaps it’s Murphy’s slumped shoulders, the desperate air about him as he holds his head in his hands, elbows balanced heavily on the tops of his knees.

“Why us?” he says softly, and Bellamy shakes his head as a drop of rainwater collected overnight drips silently from the roof into his curls. “Why a _baby?”_ he says, louder this time, and picks his head up to look at Bellamy in disbelief. “’The drapes are lovely, we could leave them our pearls to pawn- oh, I know, they’ll want to share our child like it’s a fucking vacation home in the Bahamas!’” Murphy wheezes.

Bellamy crosses his arms over his knees, pulls them to his chest as he looks out to the rain-slicked street, looks out at the little red tricycle tipped over in the adjacent neighbor’s ditch. “Clarke and Lexa were planners. They chose us for a reason.”

Murphy gives him a withered look, thin, cinnamon hair hanging limply in his eyes. “Yeah, to punish us for being single and happy.”

“You’re not single or happy.”

“I am _too_ single!”

Bellamy pinches the corner of the phone peeking from Murphy's pocket, swipes it out and turns the lockscreen towards him pointedly, keeping his mouth closed about the depressing ass background: a black-and-white photo of a young Murphy and a handsome couple of parents posing with their chins on his head, his youthful little face frozen in a Polaroid laugh.

“Your eleven new texts from _‘straight nate’'_ beg to differ.”

The brunet scowls, snatching his phone back and pausing at the sight of his own lockscreen, freezing as if he’d forgotten what it looked like. Bellamy watches the push and pull of his chest as he traces a thumb over the man in the picture, watches his throat roll as he swallows and pockets the device, blinks quickly and pushes himself up to an abrupt stand. “We should go back,” he insists.

“So you aren’t running for the hills?”

Murphy blinks at him, and then grips the porch railing and takes a step towards the door wordlessly.

The other man collects himself, strikes down his heavy breathing and reddened eyes as his gaze flickers up the empty house covered in creeping trails of gray rainwater and scattered pine needles, shuddering with the ghosts of them. “I know they chose us for a reason.”

“Just come the fuck inside, Blakespeare.”

*******

Murphy drags his chair out with a shrill squeak against hardwood panels, pitches himself into it and presses up against the table. He starts to speak, widening his hands in a broad gesture as he blurts, “Options,” and knocks his knuckles against a half-empty coffee mug that Bellamy soundlessly catches the handle of, sliding it slightly away from the other trembling man like one would push a lidless cup away from a hyperactive toddler. He eyes him warily as Murphy coughs, clears his gravelly throat and elaborates. “You said we had options?”

The lawyer nods, pulling his own beige mug closer to him. “Yes, Clarke’s mother, Abigail, is one-”

“Perfect!” Murphy exclaims, nodding quickly and smiling emptily at Bellamy. “She sounds perfect, great,” he rambles, clasping his hands together in a way that would seem pleasant if he hadn’t been acting like he’d just snorted four lines off of the porch cement.

Bellamy watches him analytically, logs his bedhead and wrinkled uniform shirt, dark circles around his eyes as he trembles in bringing his coffee mug to his lips. He has to hold back a laugh. He’s in just as bad of shape. It isn’t funny, but it is.

Murphy has to put two hands around the mug just to keep it still as he shakes like a chihuahua.

“There are a few cousins of Lexa’s,” Mr. Kane goes on, looking unfazed by the hand covering Bellamy’s mouth, Murphy’s fingers weaving themselves together and apart in a nervous tick.

“Perfect!” Murphy bellows again, “Cousins, cousins love babies, perfect,” he blabbers, wiping his desert-dry nose furiously, and Bellamy can’t let this happen. He can’t do this with... that.

“I’m sorry, can I stop you there?”

Mr. Kane tilts his head curiously, waves a hand in a ‘go on’ gesture.

“What if, one of us,” Bellamy looks quickly at Murphy, who’s staring at him hard enough to make dents in the hollows of his eyes, “Alone, by ourselves,” he emphasizes, “Chose to, uh- raise her on our own?”

Murphy puts a hand over his pocket protectively. “Or both of us, hypothetically.”

Bellamy wants to attack him, wishes fire to descend upon his manor.

“Well, they named you, so I’d just set up a court hearing to grant you temporary custody, and that’s it.”

Bellamy nods shortly, sinking into his chair thoughtfully, thumb pressing against his bottom lip as Murphy glances around the room as if he’s searching for something. “In terms of finance, the estate will cover the mortgage, but that’s about it. Clarke and Lexa didn’t have much in in the way of savings. They bought this house as an investment after Clarke’s father, Jake, passed away.”

It’s too real. Bellamy’s only a tailor. Bellamy can’t do this alone. Bellamy can’t do this with Murphy. Bellamy’s gonna throw up.

“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?” Kane says soothingly, noticing fear-stricken faces across the expanse of the table. “Let’s just focus on Costia.”

Bellamy breathes in, breathes out. Three Minute Breathing wasn’t worthless. He nods, and Murphy mimics him carefully. “So,” the lawyer begins again, and everyone is afraid of what he’s about to say. Even the faucet tears up at the careful twist of his lawyer smile. “I suggest the two of you move in here in the interim, for Costia.”

Murphy barks out a wheezelaughcough sound. “You want us to live here? _Together?”_

Bellamy pinches the bridge of his nose. “No. Hell no.”

“Yes, for Costia. just for now,” Mr. Kane supplies. “It’s the best thing to do until you decide what you want.”

Murphy and Bellamy exchange a weary look. It carries no words other than _‘fuck you, but I love that stupid baby’._

It’s enough understanding to send them scrambling into the car together for a rescue mission when CPS calls, leaving the gentle lawyer behind in a storm of fluttering papers and crooked reading glasses.

It’s enough.

*******

“Sign here, Mr. Blake.”

He does.

The pen catches on the ‘e’.

“And sign here, Mr. Murphy.”

He does.

The pen blurs beneath the ‘M’ as he backtracks to aboveline the ‘J’ in John.

Bellamy looks at him, not unkindly, as Murphy stares at his own name, scrawled in blue ink. His name is John. John Murphy. It’s simple. It’s boring. It’s unassuming. It’s a terrible name for a man like him.

His name is John.

A little whimpering mass of candy-cane striped pajamas in the last leg of May enters the main room, on a chariot of kind arms above a pencil skirt. The woman hands her over to Bellamy as he leaps from his seat and leaves Murphy’s head spinning, gathers the baby girl in his arms and looks her over as he holds her at arm’s length.

“Oh god, Tia, hey kiddo,” he greets in a shaken whisper, folding her against him as she shakes her little fists and twists around in his big hands like she’s looking for someone else. She whines as she turns her little bobble head around and around, and Murphy cranes to hear as Bellamy hushes in her tiny ear. “I know, I know.”

The younger man swallows hard, willing away the desk woman’s eyes as he steps hesitantly forward. He thinks he loves that stupid baby, but what if he looks into the eyes she stole from Clarke and he hates her? Can he hate a baby? He thinks he could if he wanted to.

Costia makes grabby hands as Murphy peers over Bellamy’s shoulder from a careful distance, and Bellamy follows her blossoming and wilting little fingers with his eyes until they land thoughtlessly on Murphy. “You want Uncle Murphy?”

And the way he says it fills Murphy’s chest with tears that he knows won’t cry until he’s on the floor of his shower in the dark that night. Uncle Murphy. Like he’s family.

Or he’s a slip of the tongue. He’s a habit. He’s nothing special.

But God, does he feel real fucking special when Bellamy says it again, whispers it, _“Here’s Uncle Murphy,”_   he tells her quietly as she whimpers, and that stupid baby takes a fistful of Murphy's shirt and presses her doughy little cheek against his collarbone.

He supports her butt, just like Lexa tells him to. Told him to.

She’s breathing softly against his chest when he puts his lips against the fuzzy peak of her head, absently thinks she’s very much like a little pink peach as he mumbles, “Your parents are dead.” Costia's tiny stolen eyes flutter closed, lovely, dumbly.

The desk woman blinks, pen freezing between her fingers. Bellamy catches his eyes through a field of wispy golden hairs like wheat over a hill, shakes his head microscopically. _‘You’re a fucked up man, John Murphy,’_ his stare says. “Let’s go home,” his mouth says.

Murphy holds back tears as Bellamy holds the door open for him as they leave, like they’re fucking husbands. He hates him. He hates Clarke. He hates Lexa. He hates that house. He hates this stupid baby. He hates the tiny breaths puffing against his heart. Fuck, he hates them all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bad chapter! dumb! sorry it took so long! i wasn't busy i just suck! love you!


	5. i'll lay the table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters at once as an apology for the longer wait than usual! battabing

He holds his hand in the bottom drawer of the fridge longer than needed, feeling the sensation of the cold against his knuckles as his fingers-- trembling still, but less than the night before, or the one before that-- curl around the neck of a bottle.

The maple glass is winter against his palms as he shuffles through the kitchen, down the hallway pinned together by perfect, sunny family photos of two women and their beloved baby. Their beloved baby who now sleeps soundly in a playpen in the corner of the living room, despite Murphy’s untied shoelaces scraping loudly across the grainy floorboards, the clattering of a crystal vase as he mishandles the faux sunflowers.

He takes a long swig of his beer before he crumples onto the couch across from the loveseat, both blue, made of that stuff that changes shades depending on which direction you rub your hand over it. He isn’t sure what it’s called, but he tries to write his name in it with a fingertip as Bellamy taps the end of a highlighter against some book he’s reading on the loveseat.

“She needs a sleeping schedule,” he murmurs.

“What?”

“She needs a sleeping schedule. It’s important,” Bellamy repeats without looking up, dragging his orange highlighter through another line of text.

Murphy resigns his beer to the coffee table, glass clacking against glass sharply enough to force Bellamy’s eyes to flicker from the page to Murphy’s bottle. “Why didn’t they talk to us?”

Cinnamon eyes flit to sugar eyelids, Murphy’s face scrunched closed. “What?”

“They should have talked to us,” Murphy decides, eyes opening and darting to meet Bellamy’s gaze. “This isn’t something you just never tell someone, like-” he breathes strangely, like someone’s shoved him and sent all the air out of his lungs in one gasp. “’Hey Murphy, did you watch _Game of Thrones_ last night? There was this awesome part with Cersei, and if I die I’m leaving you my kid.'”

Bellamy sucks in his bottom lip, mouth curling in amusement as he looks back to his book and tries to ignore Murphy’s arms waving in frantic circles in his peripheral.

“Is that so hard?” he whines, slumping down and straining his arm to reach for his beer, fingers wiggling as he attempts to grab hold of it from afar.

“I told you. They were thorough, they were planners. They trusted us.”

He feels the gust of wind before it hits him, a daisy-print pillow smacking against the side of his face, knocking the uncapped highlighter from his hand and leaving a jagged orange streak across the couch cushion.

“I don’t fucking care! You keep saying that like it makes a difference, like them dropping their stupid baby in our hands without any warning was okay because they had a _plan._ ”

Bellamy caps his highlighter, shoves it between the pages of the parenting book he’s reading and slams the paperback onto the table. Murphy glares at him as he nurses his beer, seven chins smiling back at him as the brunet’s head is tucked into his neck against the arm of the couch. “Maybe you would have preferred they die in a horrific wreck after the e-mail about their guardianship arrangements in case of their untimely demise was sent?”

Murphy curls his lip defensively, pushing his back against the armrest to sit up slightly. “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m just- I’m- first of all, how are we going to afford this house?”

Bellamy thumbs at the corner of his eyes, leaning back so as not to look at the asshole parallel to him. “The lawyer already said the mortgage was covered.”

Murphy starts windmilling the arm clasping the beer bottle again, tucking a knee under himself as he sits up further in his frustration. “What about utilities? The upkeep? Taxes?”

“What do you know about upkeep, Swamp Monster,” Bellamy mutters, but Murphy plunders on over him, comment lost underneath the stifling air of panic.

“Lexa was an enrollment manager-officer-chief-president-whatever, I don’t make that kind of cash,” he continues, pointing an unwavering, stubby little finger between Bellamy’s eyes. “And you- what do you do? You make pants for a living?”

“I run a successful tailoring business, actually,” Bellamy bites, gathering his book back into his lap and curling into the couch as Murphy breathes heavily from across the table. “I do really well for myself, Mayor of Soup Town.”

“It’s City of Soups, dick, and taking care of suits is not like taking care of a kid,” he says matter-of-factly, leaning, satisfied, into the couch as Bellamy circles another paragraph in neon tangerine highlighter.

“I never said it was, but I’ve been taking care of Octavia completely alone since she was twelve, so I’m pretty sure I know my way around.”

“Twelve and one are pretty fuckin’ different. Does Octavia shit herself everyday? Stick her tongue in electric sockets?”

Bellamy keeps his eyes on the page as Murphy swipes his hand abruptly over the fabric of the couch. “No, but I’m sure one of us has experience with those types of incidents.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

A shrill whine comes from behind them, causing Murphy to bolt upright as Costia’s cries ring through the den.

“She’s up,” Bellamy announces, and Murphy gives him a ‘No shit, Sherlock’ look of grand proportions as they put down their beer and books and argument as a whole to meander over to the rattling playpen of banshees.

The flour-skinned baby makes tiny crab claws at Murphy as they approach, but Bellamy slaps his outstretched arms away as he goes to pick her up.

“Don’t pick her up, she has to self-soothe.”

“Self-soothe? She’s a baby, not a monk, fuck off.”

“No, Murphy,” Bellamy insists, standing in front of Murphy to block him with his body. “I just read it, it’s important. Give her a minute.”

Murphy huffs, backing off as Bellamy drops his stance and returns to his side, pulling on a forced smile as her screams grow harsher. The pale man next to him groans, rubbing his temples as she roars bloody-murder at them.

“Hey, it’s okay! Everything’s okay,” Bellamy shushes gently, smiling painfully at the stomping baby. Murphy cocks his head.

“That sounds like Bellamy-soothing.”

“Don’t be an ass, we’re allowed to like, calm her without picking her up.”

“I think you’re making up rules as we go.”

Bellamy smacks the back of his hand against Murphy’s chest, who stumbles back at the ‘slap’. “Who read the _Parenting for Dummies_ book? I did, not you.”

Costia shrieks again to remind them of her presence after Murphy shoves harshly at Bellamy, sending them into a flurry of half-hearted slaps and punches.

“Oh my god, _silence,_ ” Murphy pleads, as Bellamy flares his hands out at his cheeks and shifts his weight from foot to foot like a stegosaurus.

“Happy baby, happy baby!”

Costia wails louder. And good for her, Murphy thinks, that was a fucking terrible stegosaurus.

“Okay, we’ll sing a song, uh-” He racks his brain for a song with lyrics, one that babies like.

Murphy blinks at him, and then sighs. “The wheels on the bus go round ‘n round,” he murmurs blandly, and Bellamy nods furiously at the suggestion, joining in louder and more enthusiastically.

“Round and round, round and round!”

She half-screams, half-whines. An improvement.

“The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town,” they finish, Murphy looking sick to his stomach.

Costia blinks, whimpering.

“It worked?” Bellamy says it like a question, straightening up in satisfaction, before she reels back and squeals unhappily at the top of her lungs.

 _“What the fuck do you want from us?!”_   Murphy screams back, looking near tears, and the baby screeches back in his face like a warning gull as he hunches over.

“I’m just-” Bellamy looks between an almost crying Murphy and a tornado siren of a baby with crossed arms. “She must be hungry, I’m just gonna feed her,” he decides, leaning over the playpen to pull her writhing little body into his arms and take off to the kitchen.

Murphy glares at his retreating figure with a pounding headache and wet eyes. “Self-soothing my ass.”

***

She bangs tiny fists against the high-chair’s plastic tray as Bellamy buckles her in.

“She isn’t going to Hulk out of it,” Murphy supplies, pressing heavily on the blender lid as he eyes Bellamy’s tired face from across the kitchen. The older man blatantly ignores him, offering his fingers for Costia to hold onto. She wraps her hands around them, but only to bang his larger knuckles against her tray to make a louder sound. Murphy would be impressed if he could think about anything over the sound of the blender and two babies screaming, as Bellamy roars, “Hurry up! She’s a one-year-old, not a food critic!”

“I’m not gonna just feed her anything! ‘Here Tia, here’s a wad of paper towels for lunch because Uncle Bellamy doesn’t love you.’”

“We’ll feed you before you’re two,” Bellamy hushes, running a thumb over her the back of doughy little hand as she slams it urgently against the plastic tray again.

Murphy sighs as he begins spooning his concoction out of the blender and into a little bowl, drooping eyes flickering up at the other man as he does so.

“So, what does becoming a surprise daddy do to your, you know, your chances of marrying someone and having your own kids?”

Bellamy gives him a sour look, a combination of a scrunched nose and a frown. “What?”

“I’m just saying, a guy your age without big money already has a hard time competing for a man or a woman who isn’t like, hideous or shitty,” Murphy elaborates, tossing a cookie-themed bib from the cabinet at Bellamy. He catches it with one hand, always trying to prove his athleticism and masculinity or coordination or some shit, and Murphy rolls his eyes in tune with him.

“Well, in that case at least you’re still on the table,” he says without looking away from the Velcro he’s struggling to stick together behind Costia’s neck, and Murphy can’t help but grin as he stirs the bowl of mush around a few times. “And you don’t know anything about me,” he adds.

Murphy’s smile fades as he rips a sailboat-printed paper towel from its roll. “I know that you don’t know how to use Velcro. Prickly parts go together,” he advises, and Bellamy scowls as he follows his directions, the scratchy, rough sound of the bib connecting proving Murphy right.

“Why do you want me to give up on her?” Bellamy finally asks, the elephant in the room backing quietly into the hallway.

Murphy blinks in quick succession, surprised by his bluntness. “I don’t, I just want what’s best for her.”

“No, _I_   want what’s best for her,” Bellamy corrects, wrapping a huge, freckled hand around her little one as she rattles the tray impatiently. “You want what’s best for you.”

“We’re not it,” Murphy snaps, slamming the little green bowl onto the counter, startling Bellamy into finally looking at him.

He shakes his head microscopically, curls shifting by his ears as he looks Murphy’s rigid posture over. “They loved her. More than anything in the world. And out of everyone in the world, everyone, they picked us.”

Murphy’s face softens.

_“Us.”_

They lock eyes for a moment, Murphy looking guilty as his fury melts, and Bellamy’s shoulders slump at the sight of him. Trembling hands, homemade baby food clinging to the edge of a colorful little bowl that he must have picked out because it was brighter than the other ones, eyes circled in violet and webbed with veins pulsing with exhaustion. With fear.

“I’m coming,” he murmurs, presumably to Costia, who’s tired herself out and quieted down a little in her seat, only whimpering every few seconds to remind them of her very pressing predicament. (So she can scream and demand food and she gets it, but when Murphy does it, he's 'being a disturbance to the rest of the restaurant' and 'needs to leave now'. Where's the justice?)

Bellamy’s watches as Murphy bumbles across the kitchen with a bowl and a spoon, napkins tucked in his back pocket, and pulls a dining table chair in front of her. “You’re gonna love this, fireworks, baby,” he brags, collecting a spoonful of the carrot-colored slop and piloting it to her lips with a buzzing airplane noise. Something stirs in Bellamy’s chest, a fluttering sensation, something anxious in him speeding his heart rate up as Murphy makes the spoon airplane do a barrel roll and drops a dollop of mush onto her tray. He wills it away, shaking his head as he meanders around the counter to lean on the table next to them, watches Murphy scrape the lost food back onto the spoon and guide it to her mouth.

Costia arches her neck, turning her head side to side to avoid it, shattering cries picking up again as she grips the edges of her seat and twists around. “Come on, just try it,” Murphy pleads, posture wilting as she flaps her chubby hands at him furiously. “Look, look, Uncle Murphy likes it,” he attempts, putting the spoon between his lips and swallowing the mush as an example. “ _Num num num,_ ” he mumbles placatingly, and Costia eyes him curiously but breaks into screams again as Murphy recoils from his own bowl and grimaces. “Yeah, okay, that’s- that’s shit.”

Bellamy sighs, glancing up into one of the windows in the cabinets and walks over to tug a tall yellow can down, uncapping the plastic lid and dumping the puffy, cereal-like shapes onto her tray wordlessly as she squeals, thrashing as Murphy wipes the orange smudge from his lips.

She kicks her bare feet happily as she grabs hold of one of the puffy rings and munches on it with only her pink little gums in a mood swing that would give a fully developed human whiplash, leaving Murphy staring in disappointment at his carefully crafted slop bowl.

“You really think we’re what’s best for her?”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eh. not a very exciting chapter but we're still kind of. doing filler-y things to get to the good stuff. sorry about that :(


	6. red, red wine

  
The clouds billow outside the den windows like they’re pushing against the glass, and they might as well be, it’s a lovely reception for a funeral.

Raven’s pushing a slice of ham around her plate, before Finn reaches over to stab it and bring it to his own mouth. “Beautiful service,” he says through chewing a mouthful of stolen food, and Indra smiles sadly as she looks absently into her white wine.

“I had no idea that’s how they met.”

Finn snickers, taking a sip of his water. Raven rolls her eyes. “Leave it to Finn to cause true love by beating up someone’s cousin.”

Anya startles at the word ‘cousin’. “What’s going to happen to the baby?”

“Clarke left her to Bellamy, you know the hot tailor?”

Indra gives Raven a look as if she doesn’t want to agree, but sighs resignedly and nods anyway.

“And that one guy who follows him everywhere, you know the loud one who smells all sweaty and good?” Finn adds, twirling his fork around in his mashed potatoes.

“What do you mean sweaty and _‘good’_?” Raven grimaces, leaning away from him as he laughs through a mouthful of potato.

*******

Bellamy spots her, halfway on Lincoln’s lap in the loveseat, clad in dark tights and a simple black dress, just like everybody else.

“O, Lincoln, thanks for helping me set up today.”

“No problem, big brother,” Octavia smiles gently, being uncharacteristically careful and kind with him ever since the accident, and, you know, his entire life getting buried under a mountain of literal steaming shit.

He hands them both a fresh glass of red wine that he brought over as a small thanks, and sighs after they express their gratitude. “I gotta go talk to Murphy and some family members, don’t have sex at a funeral, please.”

Lincoln chuckles shyly as Octavia plants a wet kiss on the corner of his lips in a show of teasing rebellion, and Bellamy can do nothing but grin and roll his eyes at the love of his life and her room-filling sun before he’s dragged away by responsibility, or more literally Murphy’s little white claws around his elbow.

“I was on my way over, back off,” Bellamy mutters as they locate their targets, making their way clumsily to the front room together to speak to their first Other Option. Bellamy glances at the man by his side after shoving him off, and Murphy looks... handsome? Black button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark pants that don’t look to be cutting off his blood circulation, shoes that aren’t covered in dust and sharpie.

“You clean up alright,” he offers, an olive branch for the time being, and the brunet appears to _redden_ at the compliment before giving Bellamy a once-over, a slow and terrifying one like he had done on Bellamy’s doorstep all those years ago.

“You don’t look like a hideous monster for once yourself, Blake,” he murmurs, bumping against Bellamy’s side playfully.

Maybe Bellamy doesn’t _completely_ hate him.

*******

“Hey! Cut that out!” the man roars at the little boys slapping each other in the chest at the foot of the stairs.

“So you have... how many kids?”

Lexa’s cousin, an intimidating bearded man by the name of Gustus, waves a hand at the children falling over each other on the stairs. “Eight or so,” he shrugs. It isn’t promising.

“Nine, honey,” the tall woman by his side corrects with a barely hidden tinge of irritation in her voice.

Gustus chuckles. “Right, the whole baseball team. Too many to keep score of sometimes. You get it.”

Murphy nods. “We don’t, we don’t.”

 _“Stop that!”_ he bellows again, startling one of the younger girls whose clinging to her brother’s back and trying to choke him. Murphy flinches at the sound.

Not promising.

*******

The curly-haired woman smiles pleasantly, twirling her glass between her fingers as Bellamy and Murphy interrogate her. She’s sweet, seems motherly, reminds Murphy of a nice sunflower or a gentle breeze. She’s the perfect cousin. She’s a perfect mother.

“I had to come, for Lexa.”

“Thanks,” Murphy nods in understanding, arms crossed politely behind his back.

“My work is pretty far up North, so it was quite the ride here-”

“Up North? What do you do?”

Luna scratches her head as she responds all too casually, as if “Alaskan king crab fishing,” is an average answer.

Bellamy closes his eyes as if he’s been stabbed. Murphy sighs. “Cool.”

***

“It’s great to see you two boys again,” the kind-eyed older woman whispers, eyes glimmering.

“It’s good to see you too. And it’s great for Tia to see her grandmother,” Bellamy says, and Abby nods in agreement, gaze traveling to the baby playing with the fabric on the bottom of the couch.

“She looks just like Clarke.”

“I think she looks like you!” Murphy exclaims, and Bellamy elbows him for the blatant ass-kissing.

“So, you’ve remarried?”

“Marcus Kane, I believe you met him?”

Bellamy nods, intertwining his fingers over his knee. “I’m sure you two aren’t hard on cash, being a lawyer and a retired doctor and all?”

Abigail opens her mouth to speak, but Murphy interrupts, growing impatient. “We think, what with Tia being your only grandchild, and you two having the, uh, the resources-” he looks to Bellamy nervously, at a loss for words.

Bellamy nods encouragingly, and Murphy glances back at Abby. “We think it would best for Tia if you-”

There’s a pop, a cough, and the nasal cannula from her oxygen concentrator flies from Abigail’s nose and smacks the table, oxygen hissing out of the tube urgently as Bellamy shouts, “Oh shit!” and Murphy hops to his feet to uncurl Costia’s curious, malicious little fingers from the tube she ripped out.

“Good as new!” Bellamy cheers awkwardly, raising a fist as Abby adjusts the cannula back into place with wide eyes.

“Still breathing!” Murphy crows uncomfortably, eyes shifting in a panic to Bellamy.

They’re fucked.

*******

Bellamy runs a finger over the baby monitor, light glowing a steady green as he watches Murphy toss another food-smudged paper plate into the garbage, left over from the reception. Murphy glances at him from the trash can, pocketing his hands as he shuffles over with his head hung and collapses on the cushioned bench in the corner of the kitchen next to Bellamy, legs kicked up on the table.

“We could go with the nine kids family. They obviously know how to keep a child alive,” Bellamy mumbles, and Murphy sighs, reaching over to slip the wine glass from Bellamy’s fingers, drinking half of it before the other man tugs it back absent-mindedly.

“Luna was nice,” Murphy offers instead, and Bellamy raises an eyebrow at him.

“Have you not seen _Deadliest Catch?”_   he says incredulously, and Murphy rolls his eyes. Of course he’s seen _Deadliest Catch_. “That woman will be at the bottom of the ocean before she’s thirty-five, not to mention she’ll never be home.”

A lamp flickers down the hall, and Murphy slumps further down his seat. “We put the grandma on a platform, child-proof her oxygen robot thing, she’ll live.”

Bellamy blinks, turning his head to stare at Murphy. Murphy sighs. “Yeah.”

“We’re fucked.”

Bellamy blinks. Murphy looks almost nice in dimmed light. Soft, handsome even.

Murphy cocks his head against the cushion, hair bunching up between them. Bellamy’s freckles are more noticeable against the moonlight coming in from the window, his shoulders look a little stronger in a tux. That’s- a weird thing to think.

They turn their eyes away in sync, looking forward at the front door as the little green light on the baby monitor flickers teasingly. Bellamy moves his glass into Murphy’s hand wordlessly, wine swirling as their fingers get tied up in the gesture. Murphy pulls the drink to his lips and sips gingerly, sparingly, before pressing the wet glass to Bellamy’s mouth and tipping it slowly as an offering. Bellamy laughs, softly in the dark kitchen, before he takes a sip, watches Murphy pull the glass back and struggle to tilt the red wine between his own lips again, curled in a small smile.

Yeah. They’re fucked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ??? anyone still reading or am i talking to myself im sorry this sucks JDSFJSJDK  <3


	7. shituation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update if anyone cares! there was no valid reason im just irresponsible and messy but i posted seven and eight to make up for it
> 
> awkward break in the themed chapter names bc this one was literally too silly to match any of the lyrics
> 
> dont eat while reading this chapter okay thanks love u enjoy

“Next case, the matter of Costia Griffin-Woods, index number 03829-17.”

There’s a big palm behind his shoulder, shoving him forward and the beige wall panels blur as his eyes refocus on the task at hand. Murphy tugs at the sleeve of his button-down as the three of them shuffle up to the table, Bellamy nudging him forcefully from behind as he attempts to power-walk to the front but Kane’s collected demeanor and Murphy’s hesitance clog up his bulldozing space. Murphy jabs a rustling elbow into Bellamy’s side, albeit being careful not to make contact with Costia’s wiggling legs as she squirms in the other man’s arms. Bellamy lets out a muffled _‘oomf’_ that has the stern-looking judge shooting them a condescending glare, convincing Murphy to recoil with his weapons.

“Can you two act professional? We’re in a court of law.”

“He’s professionally being a dick,” Murphy huffs, and Kane sighs as he settles his briefcase on the table, Bellamy sneering at Murphy between inserting little cereal puffs into Costia’s mouth like arcade coins to keep her quiet.

The judge clears her throat to get their attention, shuffling some papers around as if she were sorting them. Alphabetically, backwards, vowels first. Murphy rolls his eyes. Law people. “Alright, I’ve read your submissions along with the will, and given that you two were named as guardians I see no reason to countermand the parents-”

“Shit,” someone hisses, and Murphy turns sharply to find Bellamy kneeling on the carpet to scoop fallen cereal puffs into his monster hands like a shovel.

“-Wishes,” the judge finishes, tilting her head forward in annoyance as Murphy grumbles and follows Bellamy underneath the table to help brush cereal into his dustpan hands.

“Just-” he grunts after several failed attempts to fit all of the cereal in Bellamy’s palm, “-just leave it.” Bellamy frowns, seemingly ignoring him as he continues to try and pick the pieces up single-handed. Murphy slaps the back of his knuckles to get his attention. “Bellamy, just leave it.”

Bellamy wrenches his arm away harshly and continues acting as a one-man clean up crew, only more forcefully now. “They’re gonna get ground into the carpet,” he warns, and Murphy rubs at the pink of his eye in annoyance.

“I’m gonna ground you into the carpet, stand up,” Murphy threatens, and Bellamy pauses to look at the lack of progress he’s made as another figure comes to crouch underneath the table.

“Hey, guys, can we leave the puffs?” Bellamy looks uneasily at Kane, before straightening his legs and planting a heavy hand on Murphy’s shoulder to give himself leverage and shove the other man to his knees. Murphy growls, jerking his shoulder away as he rises to a stand and brushes the crumbs from his knees. Bellamy spills the puffs in his hand onto the table with a soft clatter, and Murphy makes busy work of noisily scooping them into their container, waving another hand flippantly at the judge.

“Proceed, your honor.”

The judge has her hands crossed, eyes drooping in irritation. “I hereby grant joint legal and physical custody of Costia Abigail Griffin-Woods to Bellamy Blake and Jonathan Murphy,” she says, all in one rushed, tired breath, and punctuates it with the hollow noise of a gavel.

Murphy blinks. “That’s it?” He looks disbelievingly to Bellamy, who stares back at him with wide eyes and furrowed brows, globally translating to ‘What the fuck are you doing?’. “You’re not gonna ask us anything? What if we’re arsonists or murderers?” The judge quirks an eyebrow, and Bellamy smacks Murphy’s bicep with the back of his hand sharply, a panicked little laugh slipping through his teeth.

“This guy, always the comedian,” he blabbers hurriedly, nudging Murphy towards the center aisle, and Murphy throws his hands up incredulously as Kane ushers them out of the door before more damage can be done, the rustling of bodies for the next case moving to the stands fading behind them as the freezing air of the main hallway hits them. Bellamy looks down at the open can of baby cereal in his grasp.

“The crumbs.”

*******

The front door slaps brutally against the wall behind it as Murphy storms in, always making a grand entrance into every room. Bellamy sighs, kicking it closed with his heel and checking the wall for dents as Murphy rambles on about the flawed court system, the same way he had been since they had bid goodbye to their lawyer and climbed into the car, since Bellamy had cranked up the radio over his lamentations on the entire drive home.

“Yeah, she’s all yours, strangers! In fact, take two! We have plenty! Who cares!” he shouts mockingly, waving an arm erratically as Costia clings to his neck like a babbling scarf, attempting to imitate his ranting with a series of soft “Gah”s and “Bah”s.

“He isn’t a role model,” Bellamy murmurs, holding her tiny fingers as he digs around in the backpack looped over Murphy’s shoulders. The younger man huffs, stilling to allow Bellamy to fish around in the impromptu baby bag a little easier as he mutters further complaints to himself. Maybe he’ll tire himself out and take a nap, Bellamy thinks.

He latches onto a little faux raccoon tail, an unnerving toy but one that Costia seemed to love dearly. Murphy quiets down when Bellamy slips the fluffy thing between his neck and Costia’s cheek, his shoulders slumping as the fur tickles his jawline and the baby’s warm cheek presses sweetly against him. She curls a pudgy arm tighter around him, and the fight seems to instantaneously leave his body. Bellamy feels a warmth in his stomach at how easy it is, how quickly affection shuts Murphy up. It’s human. It’s so terribly human.

He shakes his head abruptly, stomping forward to get Murphy out of his view as he drops his keys on the coffee table and pretends to be interested in the home design magazines covering it like a tablecloth. “We need a schedule. I have to go back to work tomorrow.”

Murphy doesn’t answer, and when Bellamy turns around sharply to confront him, he finds the man with the tip of his nose upturned against the fabric of Tia’s little purple leggings, face scrunched as he sniffs at her behind like a dog. “She pooped.”

“Oh,” Bellamy says, just as short. Murphy extends her in her arms, Costia squealing as she’s tilted forward, bottom pointing as far away from the other man as possible as he pushes her towards Bellamy. He takes her reluctantly, holding her butt near his face. “Yeah, that’s, holy shit- wow, okay, that’s ripe. That’s- that’s poop. Do you wanna take thi-”.

Murphy’s gone.

*******

Murphy protests weakly, batting at Bellamy’s arm as the raven-haired man drags him up the stairs, holds tightly to his wrist as he places Costia gently on the changing table in the room littered with butterflies and forest animals hugging the walls in hundreds.

“Okay, do it.”

“You do it, you coward,” Murphy spits, and Bellamy wrenches him closer to himself and the changing table as Costia kicks her legs like she’s riding a bicycle, squirming uncomfortably against whatever monstrosity is housing her diaper. He wills away the red rising to the tips of his ears as Murphy presses angrily against Bellamy’s front, trying to get away from the table but only serving to back himself against every part of Bellamy, thick cinnamon hair bristling softly against Bellamy’s chin as he twists his head, the smooth line of his back turning Bellamy into a C-shape as he tries to escape potential ass contact and shoves Murphy forward.

The shorter man looks flustered as he rockets forward into the changing table, hustling Costia who breaks into whines at the sharp movement. He sends a dirty look over his shoulder that melts into confusion as he catches the bashful, uncomfortable freckled face behind him. Murphy surveys him for a moment, mapping the blush and darting chocolate eyes- he must be embarrassed about being scared of a little poo, that's all- before he turns back to the house of horrors in front of him. “It smells like a farm.”

“Just do it, Murphy.”

“Why me?”

“Because I’m not getting stuck with every diaper change for as long as we manage to keep her alive under the argument that ‘you don’t know how’.”

Murphy pouts, knowing full well he was going to use that excuse, and pushes uncertain hands forward to grip the top of the diaper, trying to shimmy it down like a pair of pants.

“What? Murphy, no, pull the flaps.”

“What flaps?”

“The flaps!” Bellamy shouts, groaning as he finally comes closer to point them out. “These!” he says in disbelief, pinching one of the wings on the diaper.

A light bulb materializes over Murphy’s head. “I don’t understand,” he says, patting everywhere but the very visible wing that Bellamy is holding and gesturing frustratedly at.

“The flaps!” Bellamy cries again, undoing the one closest to him as a show of example. Murphy nods, feeling absently around the other wing.

“Now what?”

“Oh my God,” Bellamy groans, flicking at the second diaper flap. Costia’s whines pick up to soft cries as she grows bored and more uncomfortable, and Bellamy smacks a huge palm against his face, mouth curled in a frown. “Pull the second flap, Murphy.”

“I don’t get it,” Murphy tries, fighting a grin as he watches Bellamy glare at the side of his face in his peripheral.

“Fucking- _fine!_   Just, move!” Bellamy growls, shoving Murphy out of the way who breaks into a fit of laughter, devilish giggles as he stumbles into the rocking chair by the door and smiles victoriously at the back of Bellamy’s head, curls standing up in fear as the man moans in pain at the sight of whatever the shit-stained baby had in store for him. Murphy fishes out his phone between bursts of laughter as Bellamy picks up the diaper like it’s a tray of radioactive waste and moves it aside, pressing record with a trembling finger.

“Baby’s first diaper change! And Costia’s getting one too,” he announces, and Bellamy hisses angrily through his teeth, not wanting to curse on a home video albeit being full of hatred. “It can’t be that bad,” Murphy decides, creeping forward curiously to see the damage, and when the smell and sight hits him, he gags.

“Stop! Stop, you’re gonna make me throw up, Murphy, stop-” Bellamy rambles, swatting frantically at Murphy as the younger man makes retching noises against his knuckles.

“My sounds are gonna make you vomit but not the-” he gags again, and Bellamy smacks his bicep, hard. “Compost pile unveiling right here?” He suppresses another burp-gasp hybrid noise, pointing furiously at the mess on the table and covering Costia’s little bum like paint. “She doesn’t even eat enough to produce that! She had like half a ravioli today!”

“Why did she have ravioli?” Bellamy asks, bewildered as his brows jump at Murphy, who shrugs, covering his mouth and closing his eyes to escape the sight of nightmares next to them.

“I couldn’t finish mine earlier, I just gave her a little-”

“Don’t feed her food scraps, she’s not a dog, Murphy,” Bellamy scolds, turning back towards the warzone under his hands.

“Yeah, a dog’s shits fit in one hand, we’re gonna need the entire Hoarders clean-up crew in here- oh God-” he gags again. “She’s getting it in her toes! Do something!”

“Fuck, hand me the wipes!”

Murphy rips out a too-large handful, nose pinched closed as he flounders to keep the packet away from Costia’s bottom and shoves the wipes into Bellamy’s chest.

He hovers, wipes layered and covering his hands like heavy-duty work gloves. “I don’t know where to start, it’s like shit pants.”

**_Ding dong!_ **

Dark eyes meet tearful blues, before Murphy’s tearing out of the bedroom like a bat out of hell and throwing himself down the stairs. “I’ll get it!”

“Murphy! Don’t you dare leave me in here!”

“Serve your country, soldier!” comes his muffled, gleeful voice from the foyer before he tears the door open, and Bellamy turns cautiously towards Costia’s contorted face, fear in his heart.

“You’re a monster."

*******

“This feels like a reconnaissance mission. Are you sure this isn’t creepy?” Monroe mumbles, and Harper presses the soft chiming doorbell another time.

“No one else is thinking that.”

A red-cheeked face answers the door, familiar sharp eyes fluttering in confusion against the bright porch lights.

“Hi!” Finn greets, extending a friendly hand when the rest are struck with silence, having expected Bellamy to answer.

The younger figure they recognize as the infamous John Murphy looks carefully at his own hand, as if inspecting it for something, before he reaches out and shakes Finn’s politely. “Long time no see, Finny boy.”

Finn grins, offers a shrug and a “Surprise!” Murphy nods, recoiling his hand as an awkward, nervous smile flits onto his face, eyes searching the small group of vaguely familiar guests pressed together, each carrying a casserole of assorted colors and ingredients as a peace offering.

“Here’s the block,” Indra mutters kindly, understanding his obvious discomfort, and he laughs almost painfully.

“Yeah...uh, what’s- what’s going on, guys?”

Raven motions to the casseroles scattered amongst them, tapping each of them with a calloused finger. “Delivering you and the new hubby some of Harper’s famous casseroles. I’d rather Bellamy didn’t starve to death without his microwave dinners.”

Murphy blinks, and then seems to switch gears. “Oh, okay, cool. Um, come on in,” he says, backing up against the door and opening it wider with a flippant gesture for them to enter.

“Oh, we didn’t expect that,” Harper says, small enough to not be heard, but Murphy clocks the underlying message and rubs the back of his neck as they file in. Monroe shrugs on their way in, giving an apologetic look to him that seems to say they didn’t agree to this. He glances nervously up the stairs at the sound of Bellamy’s groaning and shouts of protest as the front door clicks closed behind him, thick wood eating up the last of the golden porch light spilling into the foyer. He leans against it, a little chest-tickling, disbelieving laugh bubbling out of him at the domesticity of it all.

He's out of his goddamn element.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didnt mean to write an entire chapter about poop. it was meant to be funny and then just turned out gross but hey, thats my brand i guess
> 
> i promise this story will start to get interesting soon im getting there im so sorry


	8. you fetch the water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heY! i added two chapters around the same time so make sure u read chapter 7 before this one if you didn't already? OKAY cool thanks so much for reading love u

Murphy creeps quietly up the stairs, inching around the door frame and planting his fingers over the face of a little pink doe on the wall by the light switch, enough so Bellamy can hear him but giving him room to escape if he attacks. “Hey man, the entire neighborhood is here.”

Bellamy wipes his hands and cocks his head, seemingly looking over Tia before glancing victoriously over his shoulder at Murphy while he gathers the gurgling infant into his arms. Murphy’s finger wilts in the air at the sight of Bellamy’s face, a streak of something that probably isn’t chocolate painting the man’s cheekbone generously.

“What? She’s good as new,” Bellamy argues in response to Murphy’s gaping mouth. “No thanks to you, asshole.”

“Bellamy, you- there’s-”

“Save it Murphy, you selfish dick,” he says, looking victorious as he places Tia in her jungle-themed playpen and shoulders past Murphy to the stairs, and Murphy trails in resignation after him and his literal shit-eating grin as he greets the guests in the foyer.

“Hey guys, we weren’t expecting you!” He sniffs once, twice, face scrunching up like he smells something strange. “Harper, your casseroles smell great,” he lies through his teeth as they all gape at him, and Murphy bites the skin of his palm to not laugh from behind him.

Indra blinks. “You have shit on your face.”

Murphy curls his lips inward, biting on them hard as Bellamy reaches up a hand to his left cheek, then his right, and inspects his fingers hesitantly. When he turns to retreat, defeated, back up the stairs, he shoulders violently past Murphy, who bursts into snorts as he follows him up. He throws a “Make yourself at home!” over his shoulder uncharacteristically, bright laughter echoing over their guests’ heads as he chases Bellamy.

*******

“You got a little something-” Murphy starts, pointing at Bellamy in the mirror from the bathroom doorway.

“Shut up Murphy,” the other man snaps, bristly washcloth leaving red crosshatches across his cheekbone as he scrubs furiously, and Murphy’s chewing his bottom lip raw from trying not to laugh.

“No, I’m serious, there’s like- did you rub your neck or something? Oh my God-” Murphy gags. “You’re disgusting.”

Bellamy’s eyes widen as he touches the back of his neck, fingers brushing curls and coming away matching the brown-stained cloth. “Oh, God,” he whines, thrusting the washcloth under the running faucet again, piling foam hand soap atop it and rubbing at his neck as Murphy waves a finger in the mirror to try and direct him.

“Left, no- okay, right-” Bellamy huffs at his useless directions, missing every trouble spot and growing more humiliated by the second, and as soon as he thought it couldn’t get worse, Murphy approaches and snatches the cloth out of his hands before he can react.

“What are you doing?” Bellamy asks nervously, watching Murphy meticulously clean the washcloth and douse it in fresh soap, before he grips Bellamy’s shoulder and begins to clean him up himself. Bellamy watches him in the mirror, Murphy’s reflected face looking focused and calm, while Bellamy’s is slick with sweat and burning red from embarrassment. He hates this. He hates John Murphy cleaning shit off of his neck like he’s a dog.

He hates that Murphy’s hand wrapped around his shoulder, washcloth kneading into the tense muscle of his neck as Murphy purposely applies too much pressure, kind of feels okay. He hates him.

“You almost done back there?”

“What’s the rush?” Murphy mumbles, breath hot against the cold water on Bellamy’s neck, and no, no, no, no.

Bellamy glances at him carefully in the mirror, tracing the shape of the hair curving around his ear, the soft line of his throat. “This is just, a little weird, and everyone’s waiting for us, so-”

“Why is this weird?”

Bellamy’s jaw shifts, fists clenching and unfurling by his sides anxiously.

“You don’t like it when I help you?” Murphy asks, eyes flickering to meet Bellamy’s in the mirror.

“We’re not friends,” Bellamy says, and it tumbles all too naturally out of his mouth, but it feels foreign after it’s hanging in the air. Is that... even true?

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Murphy whispers, almost sounding... angry? as he reaches around to wet the cloth under the faucet again, front- oh!- pressing against Bellamy's, well, everything.

“Okay! Uh, _don’t-”_ he rushes out, arching away nervously as Murphy quirks an eyebrow.

“Don’t what?” the shorter one drawls, playing obtuse as he turns the cloth over again, arm brushing smoothly against Bellamy’s as he reels himself back in to carefully pinch and clean a few curls that splay out around Bellamy’s neck, all too gentle, _way_  too close.

“Don’t make cleaning shit off of me into a thing,” Bellamy snaps, and sees the tip of the other man’s ear in the mirror flare candy pink at the insinuation.

Murphy’s face and steady hands seem to falter, before he gathers himself with a false smirk and rougher movements, tugging a little too hard at Bellamy’s hair as he cleans it, suddenly. “You think this is me flirting? With you?”

Bellamy’s stomach drops, mouth going desert dry. No?? Yeah??? “I mean- no- I just-”

Murphy tosses the rag over his shoulder into the sink as Bellamy scrambles to recover, and then drags a couple of lithe fingers through the wet curls at the base of the other man’s neck under the guise of squeezing some of the still-dripping water out. Bellamy shivers, meeting frost blue eyes in the mirror. “Wiping up shit off of a grown man isn’t everyone’s idea of a hot date,” he says, low and condescending, mean. “And don’t worry, you’re not really my type Blake.”

He stares at himself in the mirror as Murphy wipes his wet hands on his shirt and disappears in the dimly lit hallway, clumsy footsteps clonking a little heavier down the steps than usual. Another ice cold drop of water peels off of his damp curls and snakes down the line of his spine, and Bellamy closes his parted mouth, feeling like an idiot as he gathers the misused cloth from the sink and rings it out with tense arms and white knuckles.

What the _fuck?_

*******

“You alright Murphy? You look tired,” Monroe says as he plants a folded napkin full of clanging forks in the center of the table, the chime of porcelain plates and intricate glasses against cherry wood and the soft chatter of voices filling the room like a symphony. Bellamy’s head is spinning.

“That would be the not sleeping,” Murphy answers sourly, and it’s then that Bellamy notices the real depth of the grayish-violet half moons under his eyes. He chooses to switch his gaze back to the fountain of wine bleeding into his glass, and ignores Raven’s look of concern as he fills it to the brim.

“Well, invest in some concealer because you aren’t going to be sleeping for the next ten years,” Harper faux-cheers, wiggling her still-empty glass between her fingers as Bellamy makes his away around with the bottle. Murphy shoots her an ugly look, one of stirred fear and irritation. She holds up her hands in surrender, fumbling to fix her mistake. “It’s- you know- no parents know what they’re doing the first time. I mean, Monroe and I had nine months to figure out what we were doing and we still screw up every day.”

Raven points the neck of her beer at Bellamy, menacing and serious. “Get a sitter, like, soon.”

“And a backup,” Finn adds between another huge mouthful of broccoli casserole.

“You can never have enough diapers, or paper towels. And those little sailboats in there just aren’t going to cut it-” Monroe insists, pointing forcefully into the kitchen. “Heavy duty shit, not dollar store, Murphy.”

Bellamy shakily places the wine in the center of the table, but closest to him, and reluctantly takes the empty seat next to Murphy, eyes trained on the hard line of his jaw as he clenches it and refuses to meet Bellamy's nervous stare.

“And when you get baby medicine, make sure it’s dye-free,” Indra instructs. Murphy nods a little, pushing his food around on his plate, fork scratching piercingly against the surface.

“No BPAs in your plastics,” Monroe adds seriously, and Harper holds her finger up to signify that she has something to say while she chews. Bellamy swallows, eyes darting nervously from his food to whatever mouth is speaking.

“Lexa wanted Tia going to Trikru Preschool where Indra’s girl Gaia went, so you’re going to start wanting to think about donations.”

“Immediately,” Indra insists, never looking up from her food.

Bellamy spares a fearful glance at Murphy, who looks just as horrified, twisting his fingers in his lap, plateful of casserole cold and forgotten.

They are truly, utterly fucked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a fun chapter i love making them uncomfortable


	9. i will build a fire in this house

Days have passed in a blur of post-it notes, shitty diapers and daycare pick-ups, and fighting over coffee in the morning before the two of them take off in opposite directions.

It's Sunday night, the thick curtains pulled closed against a quiet night in.

Bellamy smooths his thumb over the adhesive edge of a red post-it note, lips quirking into a grin despite himself as Murphy groans from the couch. “What, so you can yell at me for getting the wrong brand and go do it yourself anyway?”

“You’re getting the hang of it though,” Bellamy insists, scribbling the rest of the word ‘groceries’ in a curled, precise font in the Monday column. He checks fleetingly over his shoulder at the other man, curled up in a tangle of a homemade quilt like it’s a bird’s nest, narrow eyes flashing with the reds and blues of some evening crime show on the television’s screen as he perches straight-backed in the loveseat. The left side of his hair is licked up from where he’d been sinking sideways against the blue fabric moments ago, before the show had gotten interesting. A bright shock of yellow police tape across the screen projects onto his face with an electric glow, lining the smooth hollows of his cheeks and melting like watered honey down the sharp bridge of his nose.

He looks... something.

Bellamy allows his attention to snap back into place as he presses the tips of his fingers against the corners of a little blue square, black, felt tip of the marker swirling over the paper as he evens the score and gives himself daycare pick-up and diaper changes for Tuesday. A shallow sigh resounds behind him, and he ignores the Murphy-esque dramatic sound in his usual fashion.

“A responsibility chart is probably the most anal thing you’ve ever done.”

“You’ve done worse,” Bellamy retaliates, not missing a beat. Murphy’s realization is delayed as he knits his brows, but within seconds his face is splitting into a knife-like smirk.

“Well, well, well. He _is_ funny,” the younger of the two compliments, kicking his legs out of the quilt in a burst of gangly limbs and smacking his heels onto the coffee table, bleeding pure amusement, if not a little pride. Bellamy feels his lips pull at the corners a little involuntarily as Murphy grins at him, sharp and contagious. A freckled hand finds the back of Bellamy’s warming neck by habit.

“What are you, uh, what are you watching?”

“This girl’s body was found in the woods in like, Kentucky? I’ll bet you her bitch mother did it,” he insists, eyes tracing some yellowed document fading across the scene, particular words underlined in red.

“It’s always the dad,” Bellamy muses, gaze wandering to the haunted black-and-white photo of a couple on their wedding day cross-fading innocently over the image of a body bag surrounded by pine.

“A crisp twenty says it was mommy,” Murphy baits, and Bellamy shrugs.

“You’re on.”

Glossy blue eyes flicker between the homicide reenactment in front of him to the broad-shouldered figure silhouetted by the dim kitchen lights as he disappears in the center of the house, socked feet padding on cold tile behind the white noise of sirens.

“You want anything?” he calls in that same low rumble, but kinder, rummaging around in the cabinets.

“Filet mignon, if you could,” Murphy answers, chews a little on his bottom lip to keep from smiling like an idiot when he hears the resounding snort of amusement, nudging one of his blankets to the other end of the couch and folding his legs under himself to make room.

When the freckled man returns he drops a crumpled bag of chips between them, big arms crossed over the tops of his knees, toes curling to hide underneath the too-short blanket. Minutes pass in still silence, two sets of eyes trained on the ghastly hue of the television in the soft shadows of the den.

Murphy has to strain every muscle in his face to keep from grinning when the man moves right next to Murphy to reach the stupid chips, knuckles pushing against each other playfully inside the bag when they reach for one at the same time, Bellamy’s rumbling, warm laugh each time traveling through Murphy and making his head feel positively empty, his limbs weak, like a sedative.

Whoever said TV and junk food were bad for you was a fucking liar.

*******

Costia’s little heels rattle against the shivering metal links in the cart as she swings her legs, and Murphy sighs as Bellamy insists on crossing the mangy blue safety straps over her chest and buckling her into the shopping cart’s seat.

“This isn’t a fuckin’ derby, she’s not gonna fly out of it.”

“You never know,” the man insists, walking ahead and leaving Murphy scrambling to straighten the buggy’s wheels and following noisily after him, metal chattering and wheels squeaking, Costia babbling at passing strangers and smacking her teething ring against the cart’s handlebar, which Bellamy disinfected at least six times.

“List?” he says, peering into aisles as they stroll in a neat line, and Murphy flicks through the notes on his phone with squinted eyes.

“Paper towels. ‘Heavy duty shit’.”

Bellamy vanishes into one of the tall aisles, and Murphy scans his fellow shoppers for a moment- married, old, bald, straight, old- until a huge pack of thick, cottony-looking paper towel rolls lands with a _‘huff’_ in the cart’s massive basket. “I’m sure that’s affordable.”

“You pay for quality,” Bellamy shrugs, watching Murphy’s wandering eyes curiously for a moment. He looks calculating, yet amused, as he surveys their surroundings. “What’s next?”

His focus is broken long enough for the shorter man to glance down at his softly glowing phone, to murmur “Baby food,” and stroll blindly ahead toward their destination, Bellamy trailing curiously behind him until they arrive at a tall rack full of dull-colored, tiny jars with bright labels.

Do babies really need this many choices?

“How do you normally do this?”

“Just let Tia smell them, she’ll decide,” Murphy says, no ounce of humor in his voice. Bellamy almost laughs.

“Really?”

“She’s quite the critic,” he murmurs absently, looking around.

Bellamy uncaps a jar of sweet potato apple and brings it carefully to Costia’s little button nose, who sniffs experimentally, and then shakes her head microscopically. Bellamy’s heart stirs. That’s fucking adorable.

As the orange concoction is recapped and placed with a clinking noise of glass upon glass into the angled metal rack, and he fetches a blueberry banana mixture that he’s tempted himself to dip a finger into, Murphy finally seems to give up his search and allows his eyes to fall on Bellamy’s hands as they twist the cap off of the little jar. Bellamy holds the mixture up to Costia for her judgement, and he takes it as a success when she leans forward and babbles something incoherent, which he imagines means something like, “Excellent texture, cloyingly sweet smell but sufferable, would consider consuming.” He cozies the jar into the bottom of the cart and gathers a couple more of the same flavor just to be safe.

As Murphy spies something familiar and reaches up for a sweetcorn and green beans, Bellamy quirks a brow. Murphy shrugs as he looks down at his toes and then stretches up higher to grasp at the jar. “She’s into it.”

He wobbles forward, catching himself on the rack and jostling around all of the little glasses, a horrible rattling chime echoing through the aisle as he lowers himself down and surrenders. “I was wearing boots last time,” he says in response to Bellamy’s face of amusement, eyes flickering down to his dirty converse sneakers.

The hardly taller man can feel Murphy’s eyes on him when he nudges him over with an elbow and takes his place, and upon this realization finds himself taking his time, maybe flexing a little as he stretches up, for a reason he can’t put a finger on. He plucks two of the dull green jars from their high shelf and nestles them against the paper towel rolls in the cart’s basket, keeping his eyes on the task before him instead of the boy.

Murphy seems to shake his head, pushing the cart forward to peruse the chewy cereals, and Bellamy fumbles after him, moving his feet before Murphy rolls over his toes. The air feels a little tense, a little awkward, for some reason. Bellamy tries, mistakenly, to clear it.

“What were you looking for so hard?”

“Hm?” Murphy hums, checking over his shoulder and above his head before he holds a small can near his waist and tears the bar code off, handing the now-open container to Costia, who digs her fumbling fingers into it greedily and pops a puffy piece of apparent goodness into her gummy little mouth. Bellamy sighs. A family of criminals.

_A family?_

He shakes his head hard, willing that mind-slip away before it snowballs, and repeats himself. “Why are you looking around so hard?”

“Eligible bachelors, bachelorettes...” he murmurs, seeming distracted as he tosses another two cans of Costia’s puffs into the cart, apparently intending to actually legally purchase a few.

“Didn’t know you were looking for the one on your shopping escapades,” Bellamy teases, and Murphy tosses a lopsided grin over his shoulder.

“Wouldn’t go that far. Just a bit of, you know, flirting, I guess. Maybe a quick visit to Pound Town in the handicap bathroom if I get lucky.”

Bellamy scoffs in disgust married to disbelief, a smile flitting onto his face with terrifying ease, too naturally to be anything but concerning. “I thought you were with that Nate guy?”

Murphy’s shoulders seem to tense up a little as he turns into the cold aisle, Costia frowning as the chill hits her pinkening cheeks. “You sure do talk about him a lot. You jealous, Freckles?” Bellamy’s face heats up, smile faltering a little. He fishes around in the cart to wiggle Costia’s little wool jacket onto her arms, a twinge of awkwardness and the need to defend himself hitting him suddenly. He decides to let it go, reaching for that stupid sweet almond milk he sees Murphy drinking all the time.

He meets tired-looking blue eyes when he turns to plonk it unceremoniously into the cart, trained on the apparent gesture of kindness that Bellamy could blame on wanting him to drink less of their shared orange juice, if he felt like it.

He doesn’t.

“Me and Nate are just, you know, like-” he fumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning his back to Bellamy to keep walking forward, fast enough that the other man has to push the cart a little harder across sticky checkered tiles to catch up with him.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Bellamy sighs, a little confused by the turn of events yet somehow in complete understanding of Murphy’s situation, and Murphy’s shoulders visibly slump as he stops to dig around in the yogurts, looking for Costia’s favorite strawberry banana swirl.

The line of tension, almost a sadness-twinged awkwardness, is stretched thick between them, Murphy keeping himself distant from the chittering, rattling cart and Tia’s content mumbling of nonsense back and forth with Bellamy, who entertains her and their clearly intelligent conversation with enthusiastic nods and complex hand gestures.

Murphy’s uncapping and sniffing assorted deodorants, at Bellamy’s completely innocent suggestion, and is inhaling a whiff of “Phoenix” with a face carved by suspicion, when he speaks to him again for the first time in ten minutes. “Smell this,” he insists, sticking his arm out forcefully. Bellamy quirks a brow and inhales.

“What exactly am I looking for?”

“This smells like oranges and lavender and shit, isn’t a Phoenix a bird?”

Bellamy can’t stop his eyes from lighting up like a child’s. “It’s a Greek mythological creature; it’s a bird that resurrects itself out of the ashes of the Phoenix before it. The scents are probably inspired by its color, the oranges for the fire, the flowers for the purple and red feathers.”

Murphy’s eyes wander from their stare locked onto Bellamy’s as the latter beams, looks down at the deodorant, caps it, and tosses it into the cart. When Bellamy looks at him quizzically, Murphy shrugs, tips of his ears reddening like cherries as he plunders forward, back facing him. “Who doesn’t wanna smell like a bird?”

*******

“Head’s up!” Bellamy shouts, tossing a fresh, unopened bag of popcorn over the couch, and Murphy holds his hands up, but only serves to have the steaming hot bag smack him in the center of his face. He fumbles with it for a moment, an undignified squeak forcing its way through his lips as he struggles to fish it out of his bare-legged lap where it presses too-warmly and unforgiving against the inside of his thigh and leaves a bright pink circle.

“You’re a real dick, aren’t you,” Murphy mutters, breaking it open and watching the steam hiss out of the little paper bag as Bellamy flicks the kitchen light off and meanders into the living room, knee bumping harshly against the coffee table in the dark. He grunts, falling unceremoniously onto the couch cushion next to Murphy, half of the younger man’s massive quilt being tossed generously over his pajama-pant clad legs by a set of pale hands when he at last gets settled.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” he scolds, tossing a piece of his own popcorn at Murphy, who opens his mouth just in time to catch it on his tongue, curling it towards his mouth like a lizard. It never fails to amuse Bellamy.

A booming voice, a symphony of police sirens and a few too many ominous chimes flutter harshly from behind the blue halo of the television screen right on time, and when Murphy leans forward excitedly, already pointing at the glowing box and chattering on about his predictions, Bellamy catches a whiff of oranges and lavender.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dO i SmElL a bUdDiNg RoMaNcE?
> 
> tell me what u think!!! if anyone is still reading this i'd like to know and also i love u


	10. it's all to come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long-ish chapter! woohoo!
> 
> (thanks so much for reading like SERIOUSLY thank you so much)

Smooth porcelain bites dully into the underside of Bellamy’s arm as he slumps against the edge of the tub, tawny fingers weaving lazily through the warm water. The younger brunet kneeling by his side looks all too focused as he wastes another half-bottle of baby soap in the pit of his joined palms, lathering up bubbles and molding Tia’s wispy hair into a tall Alfalfa-esque spike. Bellamy feels warmth behind his eyes and in his chest, gaze melted over Murphy’s profile as he flattens Costia’s hair into a cowlick.

“Do mine,” Bellamy suggests, quiet against the swishing sound of the bathwater as Costia guides a little plastic horse through it, smoothly and thoughtfully. Murphy turns, bare arms crossed on the tub’s edge, and Bellamy tries not to linger on the smooth muscles, the pine green veins of his wrists, wishes he would stop rolling his sleeves up like that. He looks to be considering something, dewdrop eyes crisscrossing Bellamy’s face rather than his hair.

“If you insist,” he answers as last, soaping up his hands. Bellamy’s eyes find Costia, patting the water’s surface with intense focus, and he flicks a second little horse into the water that lands with a splash. Costia blinks up at him with that stupid little smile that he would die for, amused by his participation.

Then, with a sudden sensation of wetness, her grin splits into a belly laugh, girlish little shrieks and giggles ricocheting about the tiled bathroom. “Stop, stop!” Bellamy splutters, Murphy’s knees between his legs and his lathered-up hands in Bellamy’s hair, bubbles spilling out of his curls to run in rivulets down the bridge of his nose and along his jaw, gathering at his chin and dripping messily onto the floor. Between Murphy’s soapy fingertips against his scalp, soaking his hair, and Tia’s screams of delight as she observes-- Bellamy can’t think straight, thrashing blindly and absent-mindedly against Murphy, huge hands pushing at the boy’s narrow chest.

“Murphy! Cut it out!” he roars, pushing forward hard enough to get his feet behind him so their knees are touching, gathering his thoughts enough to scoop up a pool of water between his hands and dump it over Murphy’s head. The pale boy splutters, limp hair plastered to his forehead and apple cheeks, big ears sticking out humorously.

Costia’s laughing so hard she can’t hold her eyes open, seems to be falling backwards in the shallow water. Murphy and Bellamy hear the squeak of a bare bottom against the bathtub’s floor, the splash as her elbows hit the surface, and two starkly different hands jut out at the same time, both catching her before she falls.

With Bellamy’s dark, glistening hand trapping Murphy’s bubble-covered pale one against her back, they meet eyes, hair soaked and framing their faces like helmets, fingers tangled up in cooling bathwater, they break into a fit of laughter that doesn’t stop until Costia whines to remind them of her presence.

“She-” Murphy hiccups, one last giggle spilling out of him. “She’s getting cold.” He pulls the drain plug, smile lingering as he keeps his eyes on the foggy water and squeezes some of the drip from his hair, and Bellamy bullies his own idiotic grin into obedience to lift the baby carefully from the water whirl-pooling into nonexistence, settles her onto the sunflower-dotted towel they’ve stretched across the floor, wrinkling under Murphy’s socked foot as he wrings out his shirt collar.

Bellamy yanks it out from under him and uses the corners that Costia isn’t sitting on to pat her dry, eyes flickering up momentarily to find Murphy sitting on the edge of the tub, gazing at him with a playful gleam in his eyes. Bellamy thinks to snap, “What are you looking at?” or “Can I help you?”, but all he can do is bite his lip to keep from grinning and avert his eyes back to the task at hand. In his peripheral, Murphy shifts microscopically on the edge of the tub.

He’s patting Tia’s protruding little belly dry when he’s struck with confusion.

“Murphy, come take a look at this.”

“Hm?” he hums, kneeling behind Costia to peer down at her belly.

Bellamy touches her bellybutton, paired with a mysterious little bump. “What’s this?”

“It’s her bellybutton,” Murphy says almost defensively, brows knitting as he stares harder at the lump.

“I don’t think so... that wasn’t- that wasn’t there the other day.”

“She’s an outie,” Murphy tries, voice sounding strangely shaky.

Bellamy glances up over her head as she traces the scar dashed across his lip with a bitty finger, and Murphy’s contorted face meets his, paling in fear.

That wasn’t there the other day.

*******

“Costia?”

Bellamy blinks up from the Sports Magazine issue in his hand, and the nurse smiles politely from the doorway as he scrambles to gather Costia from the tacky-patterned chair by his side, to heave his and Murphy’s shared baby-bookbag onto his shoulders and chariot the baby to the door.

“How are you two doing, today?” he asks out of obligation, and Bellamy follows his retreating figure obediently, jittery with uncharacteristic nerves.

“Uh, good, great, thanks,” he says, and by the time the nurse has ushered them into a room, painted with giraffes and monkeys galore, he realizes he was probably meant to return the question.

“Dr. Martin will be with you in a moment,” he says, and Bellamy nods his thanks as the door clicks behind him.

Costia mouths the ear of her panda plushie almost ferociously, slobbering like a dog as she kicks her feet over the edge of the examination table. One would almost believe she wasn’t dying.

Bellamy adjusts the sanitation paper ripping under her legs, pushes her back against the wall ever-so-carefully, lathers his hands in sanitizer from the counter, paces. And paces. And paces.

When he glances at Tia, she cocks her head at him almost quizzically.

“We’ve killed you.”

*******

“Murphy, we needed that Mediterranean chicken, like, yesterday!” a rumbling voice shouts over the clanging of pots and the hissing of a stove, and a gloved palm shoving harshly against his shoulder to move him out of the way has Murphy shaking himself out of his dark thoughts about Costia's inevitable demise, immediately guilt-ridden.

“Shit, sorry,” he mutters, peeling off a sweaty rubber glove and running a trembling hand through his hair as Miller tucks some red pepper that he forgot onto the sandwich, side-eyeing him suspiciously.

“No smart-ass comment?” Miller questions innocently, brow quirked as he stabs a flagged toothpick through the sub and slides the plate onto the counter, slamming the little silver bell and turning irritably around as it chimes. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Trouble in paradise?” Mbege-- the snarky, tired-eyed server-- teases over the counter, plucking the fresh plate up and whisking it off to a table before Murphy can fire off an insult.

He shrugs, murmurs, “Baby’s sick,” and turns away, feigning interest in the scraggly bit of feta cheese on the counter. Nathan gives him something akin to sympathy, for Miller-standards, frowning apologetically as he tears an order ticket from the line and scans it, shoving a foam cup into Murphy’s hands with a muttered, “Lemonade,” as he bumbles off quietly to give Murphy his space and take care of the rest of the order for him.

As the drink machine spits out some fake lemonade concoction, lacking sugar-specks and fluffy pulp in the stream of yellow, Murphy’s grip tightens on the handle.

Clarke would have known what to do.

*******

“Those- O, listen, those machines don’t last, durability over appearance, okay? Please?”

The door creaks open and shudders closed with a soft rattle, Bellamy cups his hands over the phone, assuming that nurse Jackson has just come to gather something or the other again.

“Can you- yeah. Just while you’re there. We might need them eventually- yes! I told you, if we want to expand-”

_“Ahem.”_

Oh.

When he pockets his phone, already murmuring apologies, he’s frozen.

“G-Gina?”

She blinks lazily at him, smiling behind the clipboard held over her mouth. “Really thought we’d have at least one date before you showed up with a baby, but...”

He barks out a startled laugh, causes Tia to fumble with her raccoon tail, scan the room for danger, and then return back to her work of picking at the fur. “I’m really sorry, I just- something came up, and I...”

She cocks her head kindly, a little exasperatedly as he stutters.

“Things have been weird.”

“Apparently.” She crosses the room to settle on a rolling stool next to the examination table. “I’m sorry about Clarke and Lexa.”

He gives her a questioning look, and she blushes down at her papers. “Your receptionist told me, and I'm Costia's pediatrician, after all. Not a stalker, I promise.”

His hand habitually finds the back of his neck at the sight of the pink bleeding through to her cheeks; she’s just as charming as he remembers.

And she’s a _doctor?!_

He folds into the hideous chair behind his knees as she begins to move the stethoscope around Costia’s chest and back, shining small lights and aiming magnifying tools into her ears and nose with tenderness and purpose.

“I, uh, we- Mur- my fr- I found this, um, little bump? On her bellybutton? I wasn’t sure, you know, I don’t know what it is, so- could you... I probably could have just looked it up, but, I didn’t think of that. I don’t think we’ve- I’ve- we’ve been feeding her anything wrong? Or, I mean, she’s pooping regularly, and I thought- I don’t know. I would’ve called Clarke, you know, she was really good at this kind of thing- I called Clarke about everything, really. It’s so- it’s hard, I guess. I just want to call her, and I can’t, and now I’ve, you know, I can’t even take care of her kid, and that's all she's ever asked of me, and it’s just-”

He breathes. Closes his eyes.

Gina looks kindly at him when he opens them again minutes later, probing gently at Tia’s navel. “It’s an umbilical hernia. It’s very common, should go away on it’s own, but I’d like to keep checking on it,” she says matter-of-factly, scribbling words onto her clipboard out of his view, and he nods shakily, breath escaping him narrowly.

“Sorry.”

She smiles, tears something from her prescription pad. Hands it to him.

“I thought you said it would go away on its own?”

“This is for you.”

He blinks down at the paper.

_‘One to two glasses of pinot noir, a good book: dosage: fifty pages, as needed.’_

He shakes his head, gives a breathy laugh as his heart starts beating normally again. Her smile, her radiant, brain-melting smile, widens. “I don't know much about you, but I do know you can fix anything."

His eyes meet the object of her gaze, land on a familiar coat full of patches draped over her desk chair, miles of stitching that looks awfully neat.

"She'll be okay."

*******

“Honey, I’m home!” Murphy bellows sarcastically, slinging the keys at the table in the foyer and kicking the door in with his heel as he waddles to the kitchen, weighed down by every last grocery bag, all taken inside in one trip. “You won’t believe this dog I saw today, I took a pic- oh.”

Bellamy holds his glass up in greeting as Murphy releases all of the bags onto the kitchen counter, rubbing at the red lines on his wrists left by tight plastic and the forces of gravity.

“Well, look at you. How... dorky.”

Bellamy swirls the red wine in his glass, carefully dog-earing a page of his crackling-spined novel and adjusting his glasses to sit higher on the bridge of his nose.

It’s then that Murphy notices him swaying in his seat.

“Are you-”

“Murphy! D’ya want a glass?”

The brunet weighs his options,

A- Be annoyed that while you’re out doing chores, he’s getting wine drunk and reading his shitty nerd books.  
B- Drink.

Murphy shrugs. “Sure.”

A little grin splits Bellamy’s lips as Murphy pulls a chair out across from him, curiously surveys the freckled man as he focuses on not spilling the wine into the second glass he must have saved for Murphy-- which makes the latter significantly less irritated and significantly more pink-- and sneaks Bellamy’s thick book into a set of pale hands.

“ _The Last of the Wine_ , Mary Renault. How convenient.”

“It fit the occasion,” Bellamy says, sounding lazy and disorganized, rather than neat and uptight like normal; voice a soft rumble rather than harsh and commanding. Murphy likes drunk Bellamy.

Wait- he, _what?_

Murphy shakes his head, willing that away, and traps the head of the glass in his palm to down a bittersweet swig of the stuff.

“It's- you’re s’posed to sip it.”

Murphy juts his chin at him, feeling warmer already. “You must have been sipping for a hell of a long time.”

Bellamy laughs softly, sounding pleasantly dizzy as he leans a cheek on his fist and gazes at Murphy. “Y’know I was drinkin’ this when we were s’posed to go on that date, two years ago?”

Murphy avoids this conversation, takes a real sip, tasting the richness, the fruitiness of the wine. The twinge of black cherry. His mother never really liked wine, of all things. Maybe that's why it tastes so good to him.

“My firs’ date in a year, ‘n this _asshole_ shows up on my doorstep an hour late, just wants’a fuck in a McDonald’s or leave ‘n go fuck some other guy who he’s too scared to lock down two years later,” Bellamy slurs, unkindly, but looking at Murphy fondly in some paradox cruel enough to make the younger man’s head spin. “’N now I’m raisin’ a _kid_ with that asshole, my fuckin’ luck.”

Murphy’s jaw shifts as he slides his glass away from him, half-empty and taunting now as it swirls to the sound of Bellamy’s soft, but almost hysterical laughter. He curls his fists up, the urge to swing one right into Bellamy’s stupid beautiful horrible asshole face crawling through his veins like fire.

Instead, he pulls Bellamy’s glass away, circles the table and nudges him by his shoulder to a stand.

“You’re an asshole, y’know that?” he slurs, bright and dumb and honest as he leans on Murphy, and Murphy forces him by the elbow toward the stairs, a little rougher than necessary.

“Go to bed, Bellamy.”

“It feels s’good to say that to your face- you’re an asshole! You’re an asshole! You’re an asshole.”

“So you’re a bitchy drunk, isn’t that nice?” Murphy hisses, pushing him hard enough to make him stumble up one of the stairs. Bellamy lowers himself down to sit, looking thoughtfully at Murphy.

“Y’know you’re an asshole? ‘N that I-” Bellamy laughs. “I hate you.”

Murphy tightens his grip on a banister. “Yeah. I know.”

"But sometimes-"

**_Ding dong!_ **

“I got it,” Bellamy slurs, sliding forward on the stairs. Murphy ignores him, making for the door. “Who is it? It’s- I bet it’s a murderer,” his low voice rambles from the stairs as Murphy rounds the corner and yanks the front door open by it’s golden handle.

“What?” he snaps, and the small woman at the door practically leaps out of her skin.

“I’m- I’m Maya Vie.”

Murphy blinks, looking over her frizzy black hair, thick brows, lips pressed in a thin line. Who the fuck?

“Great, and I’m tired. This was lovely,” he says exasperatedly, beginning to close the door, when she shoves a clipboard through it. He groans, stopping in his tracks to widen it again. He guesses he mistakenly thought moving into the suburbs would lessen the amount of crackheads wandering nearby streets.

“Look, you look a bit old to be selling girl scout cook-”

“I’m your case worker, from social services.” Murphy blinks. “You were told we would be making a few unannounced visits.”

Bellamy gasps theatrically behind him, presence being made known suddenly and startling the shit out of an already paling Murphy, who blurts out, “One second!” and slams the door in her face.

 _“What are you doing?!”_ Bellamy whisper-yells, and Murphy’s eyes dart from his face, to the door, to him again.

“You have five minutes to go shower and sober up and become the responsible, organized son of a bitch you’ve been since we started this shit.”

Bellamy blinks. “Go. _Now.”_

He takes off into a dizzy-looking stumble-run hybrid, falls halfway up the stairs and screams at Murphy to stop pushing him, although the latter is next to the door. “I didn’t- okay,” he mutters, swinging the front door open, porch light and Maya’s soft-framed shadow casting onto the slick floors of the foyer ominously.

“Come in?”

*******

“Are you sure you don’t want to see the kitchen again? I’m a cook; we have sharp knives-”

“I’m- that’s fine. I’m usually wrapping up by now, actually,” she murmurs softly, straightening her cotton-candy top and scanning over the living room, when an earful of stomping and heavy breathing comes stumbling down the stairs.

“Hi! Sorry, just had to, uh- I ate some-” he looks to Murphy, eyebrows knitted as the other man worries his bottom lip and twists his fingers. “We had some bad shrimp, earlier, so- we’re both kind of-” Bellamy gestures to his stomach, makes a sloppy explosion noise that has the case worker cringing. Murphy looks at him incredulously, switching his hand sharply back and forth in front of his throat.

“That’s- more than I needed to know, but, okay, let’s just get started,” she sighs, heading towards the den, and Murphy elbows Bellamy sharply in the ribs from behind her turned back.

At the sound of Bellamy’s ‘oomf!’ she turns, and he looks between her and Murphy to place a hand over his stomach and make another sound of distress, face twisting up theatrically.

Murphy makes a mental note to ask the man for the script to his one-man play about bowel movements, one day.

*******

She gazes kindly at a framed photo of Lexa, Clarke and Costia cradled between them, sitting underneath a vase of wilting daisies by the loveseat. Bellamy had tried his hardest to take care of the plants, even accusing Murphy of pissing in them, but to no avail. “I just want to talk for a bit, get a sense of you two and your plans, your goals.”

Bellamy nods, Murphy watches him, and then parakeets his movements. Social etiquette? Not his strong suit.

“Where do you see yourself in, say, five years?”

Bellamy raises his hand, momentarily, but lowers it when Murphy shakes his head rapidly at the gesture. “I co-own a tailor shop, it’s doing pretty alright for itself, we’re hoping to expand soon. A second sewing machine, possibly a third employee. A website, maybe.”

Bellamy seems to look to Murphy for approval, or reassurance for his answer. All Murphy can do is try not to laugh at him.

What an old man.

Bellamy quirks a brow, as does the case worker, and Murphy’s ears go cherry red as he gathers himself, realizing that he’s been grinning at Bellamy like a fool instead of answering.

“I work at the City of Soups.”

She blinks.

“I make soup.”

Bellamy nudges him. “And sandwiches.”

“And sandwiches.”

The case worker puckers her lips, possibly in amusement, or disappointment, as she glances down at her papers.

Bellamy startles with realization, sitting up abruptly. “Oh, God, we didn’t even- we didn’t mention Tia, we- of course she’s part of our plans-”

Maya waves a hand to dismiss Bellamy, looking uneasy. “It’s fine.”

He sinks into the couch like a kicked puppy, and Murphy’s teeth snag on what’s left of his fingernail. He didn’t pass a single test in high school, how’s he meant to pass one he didn’t even know about?

“And you two are both single? And presently unengaged in a relationship?”

The men both look at her dumbly.

“You’re not sleeping together?”

The room erupts into a cacophony of snorts, scoffs, and defensive screeches, Bellamy and Murphy exchanging pink-faced, panicked looks. _“No, what?!”_

_“Why would you even-”_

_“Do we look like-”_

_“What made you think we-”_

Murphy’s cherry red from head to toe, fingers knotted together, white-knuckled. Bellamy’s massaging the back of his neck, leg jumping as he leans away from Murphy.

Maya waves her hands around nervously, looking a little surprised by the intensity of their outburst. “I have to ask all unrelated guardianship pairs of two, I’m not implying anything or assuming your sexual orientation- it’s just important that I ask.”

“What for?” Murphy blurts, sunk low against the opposite couch, chin tucked awkwardly into his neck, arms crossed over his stomach like he’s protecting himself from something.

“Your situation is complicated enough, both parents passing in one night, child left to unsuspecting friends who, according to an earlier report, don’t get along as it is, living under one roof-- Costia doesn’t need anymore hardships, anymore complication. A romantic relationship that might end poorly? Avoidable complication.”

Murphy can’t help but glance up at Bellamy, if only to gauge his reaction.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bellamy mutters suddenly, sounding more sober than he ever has in his life. “He’s not really my type.”

Murphy’s stomach doesn’t just drop, it blasts through his ribcage, tears through his skin encasing, bursts out of the ceiling, floats away on the night breeze.

Fuck Bellamy Blake.

Maya laughs, softly and maybe a little uncomfortably, before her face grows solemn and she heaves her purse onto her shoulder, preparing to leave. “You seem like two kindhearted men-” Bellamy snorts. She ignores him. “-Who are about to have the worst year of their life, and I feel for you. I do. But, if I’m being honest? Your friends thought you could handle this-” she pauses, looks between their slump and rigid forms, respectively, like she’s solidifying her next few words. “I’m not sure that you can.”

When Bellamy eases the front door closed behind her, laughs breathlessly with his forehead pressed against it, and murmurs, “She’s probably right,”-- Murphy has never wanted to pass a test so badly in his life.

Bellamy turns, head lolling a little drunkenly still against the thick wood, but he pauses when he sees the fiery, determined look on Murphy’s face. “Murphy... what are you conspiring?”

“We’re gonna raise the fuck out of this baby.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nobody except bellamy calls murphy a failure and gets away with it
> 
> (i love you if you're still reading this, i love you, dearly)


	11. we still pray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing like making fun of bellamy's violence kink in every single fic 
> 
> this chapter isn't funny it's just bellamy having a long gay breakdown and murphy acting like a fool and having rapid mood swings

_"OH, FUCK!"_

Bellamy comes tumbling into the dining room with the laundry basket pressing a plastic line into his chest, eyes wild as he searches for the source of the yell, the crash, the shatter.

Murphy’s on his knees in a circle of broken glass and spilled water, wilted sunflowers face-down in the mess as he pushes his phone onto the dining table’s slick surface and begins picking at the shards with bare fingers, shoulders trembling.

“...Murphy?”

His head tilts up in a smile, face frozen in a laugh. “Hey.”

Bellamy’s stricken with confusion, bewilderment, as he holds the basket tighter and prays Murphy isn’t having one of his episodes. “What? The fuck?”

Murphy looks down at his hands, and then back up at Bellamy. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Bellamy sighs, skidding the laundry basket across the dinner table and shuffling into the kitchen to drag a broom and dustpan over to Murphy, who’s already pricked his fingers on the glass.

“I got a call. Arms move, vases exist, you know how it goes,” Murphy explains, teeth of glass chiming together as he dumps a lacerated handful into the dustpan. Bellamy blinks at the blood pooling out of shallow slices in his palms, and then up at Murphy, face full of exasperation. The brunet shrugs, gives him a sheepish smile.

“You’re a nightmare.”

*******

“I can do it myself,” he insists, tearing at the bandage’s wrapping with his teeth, and Bellamy crosses his arms, looming over him as Murphy struggles.

“Okay, Bear Grylls, I’m offering to help you,” Bellamy huffs, and Murphy spreads his legs farther apart over the toilet lid, hunched over his palms as red blood trickles down each short finger to swirl in the grooves of his fingerprints. Bellamy adjusts his shoulders, squirming a little restlessly at the sight, and is, as usual, ashamed of the images that get to him.

Murphy sighs, scratching thoughtlessly at the corner of his mouth. When he looks up in acquiesce, unaware of the blood smudged over his bottom lip, Bellamy shifts his weight onto another leg and moves behind the counter, learning... a lot, about himself.

“Jesus, fuck, just-” he checks himself, scolding the house of horrors that are his mind and body, discreetly, and then considers it safe enough to stomp forward and snatch the red-splotched bandage wrapping out of Murphy’s scratched-up hands, tugging him by the bicep over to the sink. “Hands in the water,” he commands, and Murphy shoves his palms under the lukewarm-running faucet with no argument, no hesitation, cheeks glowing peppermint in the mirror. Bellamy can’t help his brows shooting up to his hairline. What the...

He shakes his head, ignores Murphy’s wide blue eyes flitting to the dark curl that falls from the rest of the bouquet as he does so. He pulls the boy’s pale, lacerated hands close, easing them dry with a starkly white cloth that quickly turns a little pink, much to Bellamy’s annoyance. The feeling of Murphy’s bony, stupid knuckles, soft and wet from the water, in his palm... not entirely unpleasant. He avoids Murphy’s stare as he idiotically takes his sweet time.

“If you wanted to hold my hand, you could’a just said so,” Murphy murmurs in the silence, lips quirked in a teasing grin, and Bellamy huffs, dropping his hands quickly.

“Don't flatter yourself,” he mutters, digging around in the bathroom drawers for antibiotic gel. When he finds the little yellow tube, gathers Murphy’s hands somewhat reluctantly back into his again, and smooths the clear medicine over each cut and scrape with a gentle thumb, the pale boy shifts, seemingly uncomfortable, eyes flickering rapidly from their tangle of glistening hands to Bellamy’s face. Bellamy bites the inside of his cheek, irritated, and ignores him. If he’s so disgusted, all he has to do his say so.

“Hand me the bandages.” Murphy reacts quickly, pinching the bloody, mutilated plaster wrappers and shoving them at lightning speed into Bellamy’s hand, like some kind of soldier. Bellamy’s reeling. What the fuck is that about?

“Are you... okay?”

Murphy blinks, startled. “What?”

Bellamy inspects his face for a moment, narrow eyes flickering over Murphy’s wild, flustered features as he attempts miserably to school them into his usual blank expression.

“I’m not gonna break your hands,” Bellamy promises, and Murphy swallows.

“I know. I just- you’re- it’s...” He looks at his hands, and then meets Bellamy’s eyes. And he nods, microscopically, looking both steely and vulnerable all at once.

And Bellamy doesn’t know what that means, but he nods back once, firm and sure that Murphy has some meaning for the gesture in his head.

“What- um-” Bellamy clears his throat. “What was the call about?”

The shorter of the two’s face splits into a smile that could bite the sun in half. “Our head chef retired.”

Bellamy’s hands freeze, and he can’t help but beam up at Murphy. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t know why his voice gets so sunny, his smile so wide, but it... does? “Does that mean you...?”

Murphy searches his eyes, rainy irises darting back and forth between Bellamy’s open, honest forest browns. His voice trembles when he answers, not unhappily. As if he’s so excited he can’t think straight. “Not exactly, but Jaha’s gonna give me a test run.”

“You’re good at what you do, Murphy. I’m sure you’ll get the job. Congrats.” Bellamy starts to unwrap a bandage for him, when he sees dewdrops forming at the corners of the other boy’s eyes, pupils blown wide, before Murphy ducks his head, attempting to discreetly wipe his eyes on his shoulder.

“Are you- holy shit, are you crying?”

“What? No!” Murphy all but barks. Bellamy chuckles a little, guiltless, and Murphy sneers at the sound.

“Why are you _crying?!”_   Bellamy laughs, backing up with his hands in the air as Murphy huffs, near sniveling between his own breathless laughter.

“I’m not!”

“What’s this, then?” Bellamy teases, thumbing away a tear at the corner of Murphy’s eye. Murphy pushes him away, smiling while another tear chases the drying trail of the last, Bellamy’s lower back bumping against the counter as he laughs.

The boy crosses his arms, huffing as he ducks his head to drag his eye across his shoulder again, ears red. Bellamy sighs, giving a breathy laugh as he reaches out to unfurl Murphy’s arms, peels a bandage away from it’s wrapper and smooths it over Murphy’s palm.

By the time he’s tracing the corners of the second bandage with his thumbs, Murphy’s eyes are dry again, jaw clenched.

“Nobody’s, uh, believed in me, in a long time.”

*******

A week passes of Bellamy pretending not to hear Murphy barking orders in the bathroom’s mirror, bossing around kitchen appliances, making absurd and complicated dishes for dinner and staring with laser-focus as Bellamy chews.

For some reason, despite their past, their present-- Bellamy catches himself wishing on an eyelash that Murphy gets his promotion.

After that, he wretches into the sink, and sleeps for ten hours to try and forget it ever happened. What’s happening to him?

“Mornin’, Bellamy!” Murphy crows, hair tousled by sleep as he wanders into the kitchen, throwing his arm over the coffee machine like it’s an old friend while it spits some sickeningly sugary pre-programmed brew into his mug.

“Someone’s creepily chipper this morning,” Bellamy murmurs, voice still a rough morning rumble as he sips at a black coffee and checks his e-mails. “How do you drink that shit?”

“I like it sweet,” Murphy answers honestly, instead of snapping at Bellamy with something snarky and rude. Something’s wrong.

“Okay, where’s the real Murphy and what did you do to him?”

The pale boy clutches the edge of the counter, closing his eyes against the summer morning sunlight filtering in softly from the window, and Bellamy’s stomach twists while he watches him, eyes tilted subtly so as not to get caught staring. “Today’s gonna be good, that’s all.”

Saturday. The trial run. “I hope you have a sitter,” Bellamy mutters, and Murphy’s face drops.

“What?”

He rolls the paper up and dumps his newly empty navy mug into the sink, flicking a cornflake off of his button-down. “Octavia and I are training the new guy today, it’s been on the responsibility chart for like two weeks.”

“But-” Murphy gapes, loose limbs tightening up. “The daycare’s closed, it’s Saturday!”

Bellamy shrugs as he finds his car keys and swings them around his finger, making for the door. “Responsibility chart!”

“I’ll fucking _kill you!”_

“Call a neighbor, Murphy. Everyone _loves_ you, I’m sure they’d be happy to help.”

He slams the door closed with a rattle just as Murphy lunges, beating his hands against it and screaming obscenities. Bellamy glances down at his watch. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1- Murphy curses loudly, bare feet slapping hard against the wooden floors as he sprints off to the phone.

Bellamy chews his lip as he strolls to the car, more amused every day by the rowdy little brunet behind that door than he’ll ever let on.

*******

“Raven, please- just this once! Oh, fuck you too!”

“I know you have a full-time job and a family, I just- Indra, c’mon-”

“Monroe, we’re friends, right?”

Beep.

“Fuck!” Murphy roars, dragging his hands through his hair as he mutters half-hearted curses at Bellamy’s mug in the sink. It _was_ on the responsibility chart.

He breathes in sharply, glaring down at his sleep shirt, a dark blue storm of borrowed wrinkles and familiar mint.

He dials a final number.

“Hey, man. Remember when you said, ‘I owe you one’?”

*******

He bangs a ladle against the bottom of a pot, metal clanging until the fucker is looking at him instead of struggling with the sandwich toppling over under his hands. “Needed that Caprese ten minutes ago, Caspian!”

“Who put _you_ in charge?” Caspian-- a bitter ginger of assholery defeated only by John Murphy himself-- shouts back defiantly, apron fluttering as he races between counters to get more ingredients. Murphy grins wickedly.

“Watch your back, Carrot-top.”

Murphy laughs good-naturedly as Craig snickers, stirring his own concoction quietly as the others race about the kitchen, startled by Murphy’s ferocity, probably a little angry.

He saunters up to the relatively sweet, albeit whiny young cook, and Craig offers him a spoonful, murmurs something like, “Your highness,” light-heartedly.

“French onion?” Murphy asks, and Craig nods before he tastes it. “That’s fuckin’ good,” Murphy compliments through a mouthful, cocking his head at the young guy as he goes back to his business of ticking a little more sea salt into the mixture. “You wanna be my sous-chef?”

Craig blinks, eyes widening. “You’re gonna be chef?”

Murphy glances over his shoulder, as Caspian flips him the bird and stabs a toothpick through a sub like he’s driving a knife into Murphy’s chest. “First item on the new menu’s gonna be low-fat Caspian broth.”

“Think you have a little too much faith in your abilities, John #2,” Mbege mutters teasingly from the window, holding two tickets out to him. Craig takes one shyly, chuckling as he wanders off to make a drink. Murphy shrugs, snatching the remaining ticket from Mbege’s pinched fingers.

“Faith?” Murphy snorts, twirling the curved ladle between his fingers as he grins at Jaha’s eyes watching him from the window in the office door. “Nah. I’m just good at what I do.”

*******

Bellamy shoulders in the front door when it sticks, clasping to the doorway’s edge, and stumbles into the foyer. Murphy always locks the door.

As he makes his way to the den, keys clanging against the coffee table and button-up coming undone under Bellamy’s fingers, there’s the unmistakable sound of a basketball game on the television. Murphy watches football.

Who in the world did he get to babysi-

“T’sup?”

The first thing he registers is the gray tocque. It’s summer.

Costia, laid flat on her tummy on the couch next to the stranger, is entranced by the button on the guy’s cargo shorts, clasping it with little fingers that tremble under the pressure, and pulling it apart just to repeat the process.

He’s scruffy looking, despite a neat buzz-cut, dressed down in dull colors and giving a flat smile of greeting to Bellamy as he tears his attention away from the game. Bellamy eyes him warily. A friend of Murphy’s is rarely a friend of his.

“Miller.”

“Bellamy.”

“Pleasure,” Miller punctuates, turning his eyes back to the screen. Bellamy quirks an eyebrow at his to-the-point, nonchalant manner of, well, everything, but he doesn’t hate it. His lack of dramatic flair is a nice change, compared to Bellamy’s usual company. (Octavia and Murphy would get along nicely, or at least craft a wonderful theatrical production together.)

The guy seems simple enough, Bellamy figures, collapsing tiredly on the couch with Costia between them.

“Long day?”

“Isn’t it always,” Bellamy huffs, combing the tips of his fingers across Costia’s soft scalp while she fiddles with Miller’s pocket.

Miller props his jaw on his fist as he glances at Bellamy out of his peripheral, as if examining him. “Not the face I imagined to be Murphy’s play-pretend baby daddy.”

Bellamy splutters, choking on his own spit as his eyes blow wide at the absurdity and suddenness of Miller’s observation.

“Wasn’t sure if you existed, honestly. ‘Tall, tan, built, so-o-o-o intelligent, _very_ se--”

“Stop!” Bellamy insists, a hacking cough wracking through him as he tries to recover, face burning hot as Costia looks up at him nervously.

“I’m about sick of hearing about you,” he finishes, looking back to his game with a straight face, as if Bellamy hadn’t had a near heart attack right next to him.

Bellamy clears his throat, hand slapping against the back of his neck to rub harshly as he averts his eyes, fiddles with a knit on his pants with his free hand. “He- he’s joking, it’s- we don’t really get along, so-”

Miller rolls his eyes, but otherwise doesn’t react to Bellamy’s rambling, his nervous, forced laughter.

“Uh, how much did he promise you?” Bellamy starts, sifting through his wallet with his head hung bashfully.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I owed him one.”

Bellamy swallows, nodding mostly to himself as he tucks his wallet away and meanders to the kitchen, peeling the foil away from a casserole that probably isn’t any good anymore.

“I’m just gonna hang out and finish the game, if that’s cool?” Miller calls out from the den, voice a little higher, a little lighter than it was moments ago.

“No problem,” Bellamy answers, digging out a square of something yellow-brown-green and manipulating the mystery square onto a plate and into the microwave. As he presses numbered buttons and waits for the beeps, the spinning, Miller’s voice swarms his head.

_‘I’m about sick of hearing about you.’_

He’s watching the plate rotate around and around under a soft yellow light, microwave buzzing quietly as his heart beats in his ears, when the front door slams against the wall in it’s usual fashion.

Murphy.

“Nate, you’re a lifesaver.”

_Nate?_

Bellamy can’t hear anything but the thrumming as he pads to the kitchen doorway, peers into the kitchen, sees Murphy lean down behind the couch to whisper something in Miller- _Nate’s_ ear. The darker man chuckles softly, wrapping Murphy in a loose headlock as the pale boy tugs playfully at Miller’s ear with his teeth.

Bellamy pockets his hands, backing into the kitchen as a blush creeps with a vengeance to every part of his body, as he accepts that all he will ever hear for the rest of his life is the sound of blood pumping through his head, when two horrible thoughts hit him at once:

1\. He wants to hurt Miller.  
2\. He wants to be Miller.

He swallows, and Murphy tilts his head up, face paling as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. His lips part, and then close. Bellamy blinks, rustling his head as he lifts a shaky hand to greet him, attempting to school his likely dazed, murderous features into something falsely careless, and failing miserably. Murphy stares, and then excuses himself to the bathroom, stumbling over the corner of the rug and slamming the door behind him.

Bellamy’s hand wilts in the air.

Smooth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ???????? murphy???????
> 
> (talk to me)


	12. i'll wrap myself around your heart

“You smoke?”

Bellamy takes a long drag of the cigarette, book pages flutter persistently under his fingers at the suggestion of a night breeze. He looks up from the fading, worn leaflets of words at the sound of his voice, the back door clattering softly closed behind him.

“No.”

Murphy sidles up next to him, leaning forward on the back porch railing as they stare out over the dewy, moonlight-painted lawn, weeds growing tall and sucking the life out of the once green grass from weeks of neglect. Bellamy sneaks a look, gold porch light swarming in a fuzzy halo around his scraggly hair, moths fluttering thoughtfully about the light draped over his narrow shoulders.

Thoughtlessly, wordlessly, he tilts his hand to hold the cigarette near Murphy’s thin fingers, curled around the splintering wood railing. Murphy takes it, pinching it between his fingers carefully, and the empty space in Bellamy’s hand is replaced by the warming neck of a bottle of beer. Bellamy tilts it back graciously, tries to ignore the lingering warmth and sweat of Murphy’s palm across the damp label, the glistening lip of the bottle where Murphy’s mouth had been.

_A kindergarten thought passes through his head in a breath, “You’re kind of kissing him.”_

_“Oh, shut up,” the adult half of his mind scolds, and the other side quiets, humiliated._

Murphy hasn’t done anything with the cigarette, other than watching it curiously as he taps some ash over the side of the porch. He must feel Bellamy’s eyes on him, so he murmurs, “Asthma.”

Bellamy chuckles, taking the cigarette back and sliding Murphy’s beer to him. “You’d probably be better off not being around me, then.”

Murphy snorts, smiling ruefully as he pushes his palms against his eyes. “You can say that again.”

It strikes Bellamy as a strange response. “What?”

The boy visibly darkens, even against the orange glow wrapping around his lean form, the white moonlight spilling across the sharp features of his face. “Forget it.”

Time passes in silence, in Bellamy putting out embers on the railing and massaging the hot ash into a stain on the wood, head ducked, in Murphy’s amused smile when he notices the gesture. In a hand flicking a moth from Bellamy’s curls, in pale fingers tapping against the wood grain to the beat of cicadas chirping. In Murphy’s phone vibrating, lighting up the pocket of his too-tight khakis that Bellamy definitely has not looked at.

It’s probably Nate. Stupid charming stoic Murphy-kissing doodoo head Nate.

“Miller was alright.”

“I know," Murphy snaps, not rudely, just- soft and quick. He _knows._

Bellamy hums in maybe-faux agreement, eyes roaming over the sides of the tool shed, seeping brown along the sides and collecting dust.

“What, no jokes about how pathetic I am?” Murphy mutters, so quietly Bellamy wouldn’t have heard if he weren’t right next to him.

His heart clambers up to his throat uninvited. Come _on._ “Murphy... I was- I was drunk. I didn’t mean that.”

Murphy shifts slightly away, picking at the skin around his nail. “I get it. You know, if you did mean any of it. I’m an asshole. And pathetic.” He laughs darkly, a self-deprecating sigh if anything.

Bellamy swallows, feeling like he’s been flung into the center of that familiar old John Murphy landmine, where there’s no right answer, no way to avoid hurt feelings or a cage match, no way to not scream something they don’t mean.

“If you hate me, I’d get it.”

“No,” Bellamy blurts out, without thinking. “I don’t.”

Murphy quirks an eyebrow, checking on him out of the corner of his eye, even as he weaves his fingers between each other and scratches his knuckles anxiously.

“Well, that’s-” He runs a finger under his nose. “Good.”

Bellamy gives a weak, lightheaded smile that goes, thankfully, unseen, as Murphy grins almost imperceptibly down at his hands.

“I don’t hate you either,” he mumbles, glancing up momentarily, eyes looking glassy and serious as they dart around Bellamy’s face for a reaction.

The raven-haired man laughs, softly, and in a moment of bravery and reassurance, he throws his arm over Murphy’s shoulders, tugging him roughly into his side as Murphy barks out an _‘oomf!’_ in surprise. “Okay, well, don’t get all touchy-feely now,” Murphy frowns, shoulders shifting under Bellamy’s heavy arm as they stare out at the rows of tall pines watching them. “I didn’t say we were friends.”

Bellamy would’ve taken it personally, if it weren’t for the pale cheeks burning pink, that bitten-down smile wobbling into a face-splitting grin against Murphy’s will.

After a while of Bellamy trying not to tremble when Murphy shifts closer to press himself against his side, Murphy trying not to spill his drink when Bellamy shakes with laughter over some dumb joke he’s made, Murphy’s thumbing the spine of the salmon cover of Bellamy’s book when he speaks up again, gravely serious.

“I feel like we’re living in a graveyard.”

Bellamy glances down at the tuft of hair leaning against his shoulder warmly, lips quirked to make fun of him. “Okay, Edgelord, care to elaborate?”

Murphy bats a hand against Bellamy’s chest-- his very firm, unfair chest. “You know what I mean. The pictures, all their clothes, Clarke’s paints and Lexa’s candles and just, all their shit. I don’t wanna think about them every day.”

“Makes you feel like you aren’t supposed to be here,” Bellamy muses, eyes trained on Lexa’s inherited bow propped up against the tool shed wall, spiderwebs weaving through it’s half-moon center. He feels Murphy nod against him.

“Well then, John Murphy,” Bellamy decides, looking down as Murphy tenses up next to him. “Would you do me the honor of joining me in moving that bus?”

Murphy scrunches up his nose. “What bus?”

“ _’Move. That. Bus!’_   You know?”

The boy shrugs.

“It was a- Extreme Home Makeov- never mind. It’s ruined. You ruined it.”

Bellamy reluctantly retracts his arm and makes his way for the door, smiling as Murphy scrambles, laughing, to grab his beer and Bellamy’s abandoned book behind his back. “I’m sure it was funny! Bellamy, _come on!”_

*******

The next day the sun beats down with a vengeance, pounding hard on Bellamy’s bare shoulders and slicing through Murphy’s fair skin, leaving them burnt, sweaty, sticky, and freshly pissed.

“I get it, so you get more freckles and all tanned and vitamin-ized-” Murphy stops, huffing as he heaves an industrial-sized trash bag full of women’s clothing to Bellamy’s trunk, popped open hungrily as they jam creepy abstract paintings and silver candlesticks into it.

“And you morph into a little cherry tomato,” Bellamy finishes for him, shoving another bag of clothes into Murphy’s peeling arms from the garage.

“White privilege has its drawbacks,” Murphy whines, scrubbing at a flaky, scaly patch on his nose. “I’ll be on a skin cancer warning poster by nightfall.”

Bellamy surveys a lampshade, still wrapped in plastic and coated with dust rocking side to side on the cement floor. “Aw,” he coos, “Look who’s socially aware.”

Murphy rolls his eyes, lips quirking up momentarily, but his face quickly falls as Bellamy throws- not passes- _chucks_ another bag at him. Murphy stumbles, knees buckling in surprise, before he wobbles back to the trunk grumbling, “Lexa didn’t even leave the house enough to have this many clothes. I say we burn them.”

Bellamy gives him a crooked look, before returning his gaze to the pile of hand-quilted blankets on the dust-blanketed floor. “Or we could donate them, like I said, which is why we’re putting them in the car right now in the first place.”

Murphy sighs, resting on the edge of the trunk. “You’re no fun.”

“You’re selfish.”

Murphy feigns shock. “The scientific community will be baffled by your discovery.”

The pale- well- the tomato boy slams the trunk door closed and drags himself, glistening with sweat in all the least attractive places, outer layer of skin fleeing his body, to the shade of the garage to regenerate health.

“Hey,” he calls to Bellamy from the opposite side of the double garage, peering at something unfamiliar, a large, framed photo turned on it’s face in the corner. “What’s this?”

Bellamy meanders over, tiptoeing through debris and junk cast about the car-less garage carelessly. Murphy’s turning over the frame when Bellamy meets him at the dusty worktable, and his heart leaps out of his throat when he realizes what they’re looking at.

It’s them.

It’s Bellamy, sneering, arm outstretched behind a highchair. It’s Costia, cheerios looped around her fingers like rings, a fluffed-up pink party hat on her much balder head. It’s Murphy, face a little blurred, eyes squeezed closed, Bellamy’s palm pushing against his head. Mouth stretched in an open smile.

Photo Murphy is... adorable.

Bellamy’s on it before Murphy can even screech in protest, pale hands shooting out to stop him, but it’s too late. Bellamy’s diving over junk and boxes and scrambling up the two stairs into the laundry room, stumbling over the rug and bounding through the kitchen. Murphy knocks over a chair and hooks his toes behind it, slamming hard against the ground on his knees as Bellamy rushes to the barren place on the wall over the mantle, hooks the blown-up, golden-framed photo right on the nail they left. Murphy wails from the kitchen floor.

“That picture comes off the wall unless you want the skin of your face in a frame right next to it, Bellamy Blake, I’m not fucking kidding! I’ll scalp you, I’ll scalp you of your perfect hair, you son of a bitch!”

“If you can reach it, Pipsqueak,” Bellamy teases back as Murphy comes diving into the den, vaulting over the couch with shocking agility to shove hard at Bellamy, to make grabby hands at the bottom of the frame and tug, tug, tug, and yet the photo doesn’t waver.

“Need me to boost you? Piggy-back?” Bellamy offers innocently, and Murphy looks at his own smiling face in the photograph, teeth flashing, ears pink, shirt collar soaked from sink water. Then he turns, wailing on Bellamy with swinging fists and grappling hands.

“Take it down!” he demands, on the offensive, shoving Bellamy against the couch with only his hands, forearms, and the top of his head as if he were an infuriated, bald ram. “Right now!" Bellamy chuckles as Murphy clambers on top of him on the couch, a knee by his hip and between Bellamy’s legs, batting his hands against the larger man’s collarbones like a child. “I’ll kill you!”

Murphy stops pounding his fists against Bellamy’s chest like a rabid monkey long enough to catch his breath, clearly laughing and very obviously not angry, despite his threats.

Bellamy likes the way he looks from here, honey and cinnamon hair falling from behind his ears, nose and cheeks radiating cherry red from the sun, probably. Narrow chest heaving as he breathes. Blinding sunlight spilling in from the den window to lather him in a creamy white light, eyes squinted as he laughs breathlessly.

He reaches up to peel a little patch of burnt skin from the bridge of Murphy’s nose, who flinches, surprised. Bellamy flicks the thin flake of skin at Murphy’s face, lips twisted in an expression of disgust. “You’re actually shedding. You really are a snake.”

And when Murphy falls back, spine hitting the tops of Bellamy’s knees, flashing teeth and downright giggling- giggling!- at such a stupid comment, Bellamy wonders if this is what having a brother is like.

But then again, his only thoughts when he and Octavia wrestled were strategies on how he could let her win and make it seem genuine. Right now? He just wanted more of Murphy’s weight, more smiles, more of his eyes on Bellamy, more touches, more laughs. He’d throw down in the octagon with him, really fight, just to feel more of him. He’d win mercilessly, just to hear Murphy call for a rematch.

“Seriously, take the picture down,” Murphy rumbles, pulling him back to the real world before his mind wanders past no return, lifting his hips and swinging himself up and off of Bellamy relatively swiftly, sauntering off to the garage with his hands in his pockets.

Bellamy watches him go, knuckles sweeping the floor as his body gives out, as his bones melt into muscle into skin into couch.

Befuddled. Bellamy Blake is fucking befuddled.

 

*******

 

Murphy elbows the door to the garage closed behind him, folds up on the brick steps, head between his bruised knees. 

You sat on him. You _sat_ on him. He _smiled_ while you sat on him! There's a picture of you two above the mantle. Above the mantle! A fireplace! In a house! With the ** _child_** you share.

He wants to destroy that hideous freckled face. That stupid, stupid, stupid smile. That beautiful, funny, brilliant, kind-hearted motherfucker. That huge, smart, adorable fucking _angel._ Who does he think he is? The fucking audacity of some people. What an elitist douchebag. God, what a- what a gorgeous, horrible fucking specimen.

 _Fuck!_ He fucking hates him. He wants him to die.

 

John Murphy _hates_ Bellamy Blake.

 

*******

 

The house quickly fills up with trinkets, garbage.

Murphy’s a hoarder.

Costia drops her sippy-cup to the highchair tray with a squeal when the door slams. It’s Murphy, with grocery bags, mall bags, a woman.

“What did the cat drag in this time? Any dead rats, Murphy?”

“Only you, sweetheart,” Murphy bites, chucks his keys onto the foyer table as the girl behind him giggles cutely, but Bellamy can’t be bothered to spare her a curious glance, cheeks inflamed by the out of place pet name. Murphy waddles into the kitchen, plants his bags on the table, and whispers something to the girl, who climbs politely up the stairs at his apparent suggestion.

Bellamy gags.

“So check this out,” Murphy says, digs a notched block out of one of the rustling plastic bags. “Eh? Eh?” he says, modeling it, shifting it around in his hands, waving it under Bellamy’s nose.

“We already have three knife sharpeners.”

“Yeah,” Murphy says, digging around in the bags for something else. “But this one’ll make ‘em extra sharp. Trust me.”

He fishes out a blue box of condoms from the bags, tucks it in his back pocket slowly and showily, like he wasn’t blatantly trying to get Bellamy to see it.

“Modesty is not your color,” Bellamy grumbles, drawing eights around on the plastic tray with a cheerio trapped under his finger, Costia blabbering happily as she chases it with tiny pincers.

“Didn’t want you to think you were a hot shot for having two girls here at once the other day, believe me, I saw them come in.” Murphy shoots a proud look at him from over his shoulder, fiddling with the thick-rimmed glasses Bellamy left on the foyer table. “Geek in the streets, freak in the sheets?”

Bellamy’s eyes nearly roll back in his head. “Shut up, Murphy. Go complete your jealousy fuck.”

Bellamy must have imagined the flicker of hurt cross his face, before Murphy faux-gasps at the adult language, pointing at Costia, who gnaws obliviously on a piece of cereal. “Baby in the vicinity!”

“Yeah, and we don’t need another one, so wrap up,” Bellamy grumbles, feeling inexplicably- well- _pissed off._

“Sure thing, Dad,” Murphy jokes, sounding both cheery and bitter, turning up the stairs to follow the girl who had disappeared on the top floor minutes ago.

Bellamy vacuums up a cheerio from the tray with puckered lips, smiling faintly, weakly, as Costia breaks into happy little screams and giggles at the sight.

He loves her. He doesn't mind Murphy. The house finally feels like a home, sort of. He should be happy.

He should.

_So why is he so miserable?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll tell ya, dum dum, you like He
> 
> i know the story has been dragging a little bit, but thinks should start getting weird and chaotic soon, so thats ,, good?
> 
> (comments very much appreciated, i am lonely and love feedback and am not above begging)


	13. and i will keep you warm

 

“It’s really not as hard as you make it out to be,” Murphy mumbles, stacking another alphabet block atop the last, multicolored tower between his legs wobbling slightly as it reaches the height of his chin. “Not everyone has my superior hand-eye-coordination, though.”

Costia babbles incoherently, something along the lines of “Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night, idiot,” fingers spread wide as she pushes her little hands against the floor between her legs and leans forward, spit bubbling from her lips as she focuses hard on whatever she’s doing, and Murphy spares her a quick glance of curiosity. Babies are so goddamn weird.

“I should be an architect,” he decides, planting a bold green letter B block at the peak of his hideous tower, trembling under too many little wooden cubes as he straightens it carefully. “I’m serious, forget cheffery, I could erect a mean skyscra- ho- _o-o-ly SHIT, HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT!”_   He trails off into panicked screams, hands spread out in front of him, hovering and twitching, as Costia’s little knees wobble, as she stares hard at her standing- _standing!_ \- feet.

 _“BELLAMY! BELLAMY!”_   Murphy roars in the direction of the stairs, voice trembling with excitement that he never thought he’d be able to summon, clambering to his own feet like a young fawn on frozen ground, legs shaking nearly as much as the toddler’s.

 _“WHAT THE HELL IS IT?”_ Bellamy shouts back, voice muffled by distance, and Murphy fumbles for his phone, patting his pockets frantically.

_“SHE’S- TIA’S STANDING! SHE’S- THIS IS THE CUTEST SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE, BELLAMY, GET THE HELL DOWN HERE!”_

A thump. Heavy footsteps pounding against the second floor’s hardwood. _“SHE’S GONNA WALK! MURPHY, SHE’S GONNA WALK! SHE CAN’T WALK WITHOUT ME! STALL HER!”_

Costia wobbles, leg bending slightly at the knee like she’s about to push herself forward, and Murphy hovers with wide eyes, sweat pooling in his palms. _“STALL HER?! HOW?”_

“JUST-” _Thump._ “OH, FUCK- _JUST DO IT! I’M COMING!”_

Murphy mutters breathlessly to himself, fingers twitching, fists clenched as he tries not to pick her up each time she totters, wobbling like his forgotten alphabet tower. “Stall her? _Stall her?!”_   he grumbles, looking around dizzily for help when she shifts a little doughy foot forward.

 ** _“NO!”_**   he screams involuntarily, right into her unsuspecting, soft little face. Startled, she topples over onto her bottom, tears welling up in her eyes as she hits the floor with a soft _‘fwump’._

A head of curls throws himself down the stairs, toilet brush dripping from his left hand as he wields it over his head, trapped in a freeze frame when he spots Murphy hunched over a sitting, sobbing Costia.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Murphy chokes out, rubbing a palm against his paling cheek, eyes peeled wide and horrified.

Bellamy lowers his weapon, glaring hard at Murphy as the boy tries to crouch, arms out to gather Costia into them apologetically, but she swipes at him, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Bellamy shoves past him, knocking Murphy into a block tower that tumbles apart as a sharp, offended gasp is torn from his lips. Tia buries her reddening face in Bellamy’s neck, whining, and Bellamy runs a still-damp, toilet cleaner-scented hand over her soft little grape of a head. “Did the bad man scare you? Did the mean, mean man make Tia cry?” he coos, whisking her pointedly away to the kitchen, narrowing his eyes at Murphy over his shoulder.

Murphy blinks irritably at him, standing frozen and rejected in the den. “You said to stall her!”

“I said stall her, not scar her for life, you monster,” Bellamy says theatrically, disappearing behind the archway carved in the kitchen wall, and laughs quietly to himself when he hears a huff accompanied by a childish whimper, the fluttering sound of Murphy throwing himself against the couch.

“Wait for your audience, next time,” he reminds Costia soothingly, who checks sympathetically over her trembling little shoulder to see if Uncle Murphy’s okay, and visibly pouts when her troubled, blurry gaze is met only with the framed crocheted image of a small rooster pinned above the toaster, and not her beloved, klutzy monster of a caretaker.

God forbid the egotistical asshole finds out about it. Not on Bellamy’s watch.

*******

“Grope some cantaloupes for me, would you?” Bellamy mutters, weighing two plump tomatoes in either hand. Murphy blinks out of his trance, eyes no longer intently following a shaggy-haired brunet perusing the dog food aisle.

“Shy?” Murphy teases, turning some of the rough textured fruit over between his hands as requested, examining it for edibility.

“Some of us don’t want to fuck everything in the grocery store.”

Murphy scrunches his nose up in disgust, crouching to roll a perfectly fine cantaloupe onto the metal rack underneath the shopping cart’s basket. Bellamy, of course, saunters over to squat and inspect it himself. Murphy rolls his eyes.

“Some of us want to fill the void in our hearts with love and pleasure and the human experience instead of, what do you even do? Shove books into it?”

Bellamy hums appreciatively at the quality cantaloupe, tickling his stupid monster sausage fingers under Tia’s chin until she giggles and swings her little socked feet against the chittering metal of the buggy. Murphy flushes and looks back down, running a finger with a bitten-down nail over the scraggly fuzz of a kiwi. Fruit shouldn’t have fur.

“So you’ve been stalking the twink with the pug over there since we walked in the doors for _love_ and not, you know, his ass?” Bellamy glances up as he ties a plastic bag of red apples together.

Murphy bites the inside of his cheek irritably, snatching the bag from Bellamy to plop it into the cart. (“You’ll bruise them!” Bellamy hisses.) “Ass may have been a motivating factor.”

Bellamy leans on the edge of the shopping cart, watching Murphy curiously as the other man scuffs at a dark streak on the blue tile under his shoes.

“Hit on me.”

Murphy blinks. “What?”

Bellamy stares him down, playful smile pulling at his lips. “Hit on me like one of your grocery boys."

The paler man huffs, ears burning and stomach turning. He prepares to turn to snark, to feign confidence and sexuality to mask his nerves. Make him uncomfortable before he sees the twitch in your eye. Quick, think fast. Chase him off.

He chokes. Miserably.

“You wish.” His voice cracks. No, no, no. Murphy scans the store for kitchen knives. He can’t be on this planet anymore. The human experience is bullshit.

Bellamy snickers to himself, leaning forward against the handlebar of the shopping cart and rolling it leisurely forward, blows a raspberry on Tia’s forehead. She blows bubbles back at him, and Bellamy laughs, bright and rumbling.

Murphy swallows. Not cute. He’s ugly. Look how ugly and stupid he is. What an ignorant fool. What an asshole. Disgusting. Heinous.

“Are you doing it?”

Murphy blinks, dazed. “Huh?”

“Do you just stare at them until they approach you?”

Murphy can’t register what’s happening, so he chooses to thump Bellamy hard in the center of his broad, muscular back (shut up! shut up! shut up!), indignant and panicked.

“You assault them, too,” Bellamy hums, falsely attentive. “Should I be writing this down?”

Murphy grumbles, trailing close behind the cart, arms crossed tight over his chest as he stares at the ground uncomfortably. “You’re really not funny.”

Bellamy snorts, pausing to tug down a baby bib that he must have thought was cute from a side rack. “You’re really putting the moves on me, aren’t you?”

The shorter man scoffs, chest pulsating with heat and humiliation. “Don’t hate myself quite enough for that yet.”

Bellamy turns on him, breathes, “God, _fuck me already,”_ falling dramatically against Murphy, back of his hand pressed to his forehead in a swooning action. Murphy pales at the airy, deep flow of his voice, the uncharacteristic vulgarity of his teasing, the muscle against his palms.

He shoves hard at Bellamy’s shoulders, heart stuttering in his chest. Holy fuck, shit shit shit fuck, he’s gotta- he’s gotta get out of here. "I have to go the bathroom,” Murphy hisses, turning on his heel to tear into the parking lot.

Bellamy shrugs as he turns back to Costia, who wiggles tiny fingers between the sleeve of his shirt and his bicep to warm her hand. “I thought it was funny.”

*******

Bellamy’s phone clatters against the tiled counter as he taps his fingers impatiently, almost urgently next to the grumbling coffeemaker. Murphy quirks a brow as he wipes a crumb of toast off the corner of his lips, watching curiously as the darker man runs his fingers through his hair, slipper-dressed foot tapping rhythmically on the cold floor, deep in thought.

“What’s got your briefs in a twist this morning?”

Bellamy blinks at the same time the coffeemaker blurts out a gurgling noise, eyes darting up to Murphy who subconsciously pulls his bare feet underneath himself in the chair, sitting up a little higher to see the man over the bottom of the cutout in the wall between them.

“Illian’s just called in sick, and O’s been up in Maryland visiting Lincoln’s family... but I kind of had quite a few appointments scheduled for today. Like, I can’t man the desk and fill out orders all at once, so I guess I’ll have to close and reschedule for everyone, although they might just, you know, go somewhere else, and that’s a lot of business I really needed to stay afloat, but, it’s alright,” Bellamy mutters, fingertip tracing a groove in the tile.

Murphy frowns. “I, um-,” he clears his throat. “You can’t find anyone to fill in? Just for today?”

Bellamy shrugs. “Who would?”

His toast crust crumbles a little bit when he sets it down gently, grainy brown pieces of bread scattering across white porcelain, as he moves to scratch behind his ear. “I- I could.”

The other man’s eyes widen, brows shooting up. “You- wait, really?”

Murphy slinks with his plate to the kitchen, shaking the unfinished bits of burnt bread into the trash bin. “Unless you don’t want me to?”

“No!” Bellamy nearly shouts, making Murphy jump. He looks to Bellamy the moment red burns over the bridge of his nose, and the man quiets down, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly as he grabs his mug by the handle and stares down into the dark coffee. “I mean, no. I’d really appreciate that... You don’t have work today?”

Murphy swallows discreetly. “Uh- nah. Kitchen’s closed for, um, maintenance, today.”

Bellamy quirks a brow as he blows cool air against the steam rising from his bitter drink. “You’re up before four in the afternoon and you don’t even have work?”

He shrugs as he drifts over to the coffeemaker and gestures to it vaguely. “I figured it’d still be warm if I followed close behind,” he says, reaching up to pull a pale pink mug from the cabinet almost... shyly?

“Thanks, Murphy,” Bellamy says, hand creeping up quietly to rest carefully on Murphy’s drooping shoulder.

Bellamy must have imagined the sudden similarities in coloring of the boy’s face to his coffee mug.

Murphy must have imagined the thumb stroking softly against his shoulder through thin fabric.

Bellamy unwinds Murphy’s fingers from his mug when it’s full, drowns it in sugar and cream just the way Murphy likes it with a smile on his face. Murphy crosses his arms, teeth cracking as he snaps his mouth shut and burns, burns, burns.

*******

“Yeah, I must’ve come down with something-” a cough. “Sorry, boss man. Yeah, I mean, I’d come in but I’m not sure our health inspection record could handle another epidemic-” a sniffle. “Thanks, sorry again. And, um- ring me whenever you make a decision on that head chef’s position, if you can. Yeah, bye.” Murphy snorts as he hangs up, phone falling from his hand and bouncing against the carpet as he drops onto his back in the bed, comforter fluffing up around his figure. “Get fucking bamboozled, you asshole.”

Bellamy fights a grin, brown eye squinted in the narrow slit between the guest bedroom door and the wall. Tia crawls from her seat by the pillows at the headboard to scoot onto Murphy’s chest, flattening herself there like a little starfish. Murphy puckers his lips and taps her shoulder politely, and little Costia turns her head up and then giggles, pressing her cheek to his lips and scooting back down to rest on his torso, breathing softly in the silence. Murphy smiles at the ceiling, wide hand and long fingers rubbing soothingly over her tiny back as she koala hugs him.

Bellamy wants to punch himself in the face, maybe scream, just from the cuteness, despite being in full stealth mode. His neck is so hot he’s afraid he might melt. He didn’t know about all of this- this adorable shit. He didn’t know Murphy even played with Tia outside of his strict baby care schedule. They have their own secret cheek kiss! _A secret cheek kiss!_

And to make matters worse, that faux-selfish piece of shit did _not_ have the day off.

*******

“Aurora’s Tailor Shop, got holes?”

Murphy sneers at Bellamy as the man gapes from behind his sewing machine, hands clenching around the hem of a pair of dress pants irritably, although his eyes remain playful and kind even as his face scrunches up like tissue paper.

The pale boy scribbles something on a notepad, trapped atop a clipboard that he insisted on having.

“Alright miss, 5 o’clock Monday, our best needleboy is all yours.”

Bellamy chokes on air, jumping to his feet incredulously, mouth opening and closing to protest. Murphy laughs silently into the phone’s speaker, leaning back in his swivel chair. “Yeah, you have a blessed day too, ma’am.”

He snickers as he hangs up the phone, jutting a thumb over his shoulder as he twirls around to meet Bellamy’s eyes. “Nice lady.”

“You can’t talk to customers like that!” Bellamy exclaims, throwing his arms into the air in a very Murphy-like fashion. Murphy shrugs, grinning contentedly.

“Like what?”

Bellamy gapes dumbly at him, bewildered. “Like, you know, all-- _you!”_

Murphy flashes his prettiest false smile. “Tone down the heart-stopping charm before Bellamy's customers feel welcome, got it."

The freckled man grumbles, retiring to his seat. The sewing machine flickers back to life and begins to rumble and jitter loud enough to drown out Murphy’s raspy giggles as he laughs at the deep frown etched onto Bellamy’s face.

*******

Bellamy glances up once as a deep, brilliant sun ray pierces through the front windows and drapes itself, warm and lazy, across Murphy’s front. He has a perfect view of the boy’s face, head tilted back, bulky boots kicked up on the desk, pen perched atop his ear and tucking his hair away from his face-- holy shit, ugh-- lemon bubblegum ballooning out from between his lips... popping with a sharp snap that shakes Bellamy back into gear, eyes flickering down just as Murphy’s tongue slips out-- oh, fuck this guy-- to lick the popped bubble from his lips.

“Take a picture-"

“You shut your mouth.”

*******

Murphy rips out a now solid black notepad page, heavy and wet with ink, and crumples it up between his hands as he twists from side to side in his chair. Bellamy talks sweetly to a woman and her daughter as the girl holds an impossibly poofy lilac prom dress tight against her chest.

“I can absolutely do that,” he says in response to something gone unheard by Murphy, and then unrolls a bit of the yellow measuring tape in his hands. “Do you mind if I...?”

She shakes her head quickly, face pink as Bellamy unfurls the dress from her arms and has her hold it in front of her, then kneels, knuckles brushing against her ankle and eyebrows knitted as he does some kind of special tailoring math in his head, ignoring her mother’s endless chattering about the importance of her dress looking perfect for her senior prom.

Murphy rolls his eyes as the young girl leans forward and blinks cutely at Bellamy as he takes the dress from her and says something else stupidly charming with a stupidly handsome smile and stupidly asks them to come back on some other stupid day and they stupidly walk out as Murphy types the stupid appointment into some stupid chart on the stupid computer.

“Want me to come with you to help you pick out the corsage?” Murphy huffs after the doorbell stops tinkling behind them, and Bellamy laughs that stupid, soft, handsome laugh and Murphy’s fists curl up until his nails are forcibly entering his epidermis.

“Do you _want_ a corsage? I thought we were going casual,” he teases, a stupid ugly smirk on his face as he smooths the big hideous dress out over a worktable.

Murphy sinks down in his chair until his spine is folded up on the seat of it. “As if I’d waste my senior prom on a big dumb jock like you,” he says, but it even sounds like a lie in his head.

*******

He squats miserably, scuttling backwards with the dustpan as Bellamy sweeps fabric scraps and broken string into it.

“Octavia’s much better at this than you,” Bellamy says, pointedly not looking at the way Murphy’s eyes sparkle under the gleam cast into the shop by orange streetlights beaming at them across the street. Why is he even...? What? Why is he looking at Murphy’s eyes anyways? What the- _sparkling?_   Who says that?

What’s _wrong_ with him?

“Why don’t I sweep and you squat?” Murphy pouts, catching himself on a hand as he wobbles backwards, toothpick chicken legs shaking under the weight of the rest of his average sized body.

“No, you look like a little frog from here and it’s funny,” Bellamy says decidedly, brushing another long strip of navy polyester into the pan, dust flying up, right into Murphy’s triangular, vacuum-esque nose. He sneezes, nothing kitten-like, but a huge, wet, shattering noise, something like a car starting up.

Bellamy laughs as he sputters, attempting to collect himself in order to verbally attack Bellamy, who brushes another cloud of dust from the floor at him just as he opens his mouth to speak. Murphy sneezes again, hard, hard enough to topple backwards and onto the hardwood. Bellamy feels tears prick the corner of his eyes as his rude little snickers turn into booming laughs at the sight of mean, tough-guy John Murphy sneezing so hard he knocks himself onto his ass.

Murphy grumbles something unintelligible, crossing his arms as Bellamy’s overtaken by laughter and starts to lower himself to the floor next to Murphy, trembling and barking out boisterous laughs that quickly get obnoxious. Murphy finds himself chuckling a little anyway, mesmerized as Bellamy flattens himself against the messy floor and fades into quiet, soft sniggers, eyes darting around the cracks in the old ceiling. The younger man joins him on the ground, arms tight over his chest.

“So this is what I get in return for being such a good secretary all day, for free, out of the kindness of my heart,” Murphy says, sighing theatrically as Bellamy finally catches his breath and collects himself.

“What kindness?” he breathes. After a moment, he adds, “What heart?”

Murphy snorts, knocking the man’s denim-clad leg with a too-large boot. “Fuck you. I’m nice sometimes.”

Bellamy turns his head to look at him, and finds the boy already staring, eyes bright. “Yeah. Sometimes.” He considers not saying what comes to mind next, but feels as if an opportunity would be missed if he didn’t get it off of his chest.

“Thanks, for today,” he blurts, and Murphy’s face contorts to something softer, something fond. “I know you lied about having the day off, and I know how hard you’ve been working for that promotion. So, yeah. I don’t know why you did this, but,” he breathes in, eyes darting to Murphy’s face, which is frozen in something between fear and... affection? “Thank you.”

The paler man shrugs against the floor. “Well, I know how much this shop-” he swallows suddenly, averting his eyes to the ceiling. “I- um, you know. I know this shop is where you get your dough, and we have a kid to raise, you know, so. If I need to answer a phone a few times to keep the cash coming in, I’ll do it.”

Bellamy’s almost struck with disappointment, hoping maybe there was a little more to it than that. But no, that would be stupid.

“Well, yeah. Thanks,” Bellamy mutters, gratitude sounding a little hollow this time.

Murphy exhales loudly, long and breathy and almost tinged with regret. “You really love this place, don’t you?” he says, voice quiet and timid, so unlike Murphy that Bellamy’s breath catches.

He swallows, chest tight. “Yeah. It’s- it’s all I’ve got left of my mom, really.”

Murphy’s head lolls to the side. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Bellamy shrugs, and they lie in silence for a moment, memories flashing in the tangerine-lit windows of silky brown hair dashing about the fabric store, long, pale fingers flipping yellowed book pages at the end of his bed.

Something presses softly against his palm, two things, clinking together, warm and small.

“They’re my parents’," the man explains softly, empty hands wringing together over his rib cage.

Wedding bands.

“You carry ‘em everywhere?” Bellamy whispers, voice stuck shyly at the base of his throat.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll lose them?”

Murphy draws a hand up to his nose, scratching his finger across his cupid’s bow nervously. “I won’t. Never have.”

Bellamy thinks back to all the times Murphy’s hands were jammed in his pockets, twisting around something he couldn’t see. His throat constricts.

He holds his palm toward Murphy, offering the rings back. Murphy only takes his mother’s, inspecting the small diamond closely, eyes glassy. Bellamy twirls the wide silver band of his father’s between his fingers.

“Are you proposing, Murphy?”

The boy laughs, sudden and loud in the quiet room.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Bellamy places the ring in the center of Murphy’s forehead, smiling down at him as the man’s lips twitch in amusement, eyes squinted against the tears he’s clearly still fighting.

“As if-” Bellamy whispers, “-I’d ever waste my first marriage on a mean dumb bully like you.”

A tear trickles into Murphy’s hair before he can stop himself, silver rings clenched tight in one of his hands, a warm set of big, calloused fingers slipping between his in the other. A wet laugh of disbelief breaks out of his chest.

 

"Thanks, Bellamy."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thots? validation? anyone out there?


	14. and i, i'll keep a light on

Murphy’s fingers twitch as a neatly groomed head of curls descends from the stairs, hand fumbling on the flimsy plastic spoon in the bowl he carries, which slingshots out of his grasp and bounces against an overhead cabinet with a ‘splat’ and a clatter to the counter. Costia claps her hands softly and giggles in delight at the mess, because of course she does.

Bellamy looks at him through the wide arch of the kitchen doorway strangely as he straightens his collar in the reflection of the blank television screen. “Use cleaner,” he reminds, and Murphy huffs out some bratty snort-scoff hybrid as he shoves his fingers under the sink faucet and wipes the green goop off the cabinet door with them, then rinses his hands again.

“Why are you all gussied up at six on a Friday?” he grumbles, fishing out a new spoon from the drawer and finally perching on the edge of the kitchen table to lean down and airplane a spoonful of liquid green bean to Costia’s amused, content smile. Bellamy clears his throat strangely from the other room as Murphy makes silly buzzing noises and an explosion sound when Costia’s lips close around the spoon, and her eyes squint happily.

“Uh,” he coughs, dragging a set of freckled fingers through the curls spilling over onto his forehead. Murphy tears his eyes back down to the bowl of mush on his knees, cheeks flushing. Bellamy looks good, objectively, all dressed up in a crisp button-up and styled hair, prim and proper. Objectively. Then again, Murphy thinks he looks alright in the morning, hair fluffed up in the front and smushed down in the back, the Morning Mullet, as Murphy calls it. And he looks good in the afternoon, reading glasses kissing the freckles across his nose, sweatpants crossed at the ankles, one big, tan (ugh, shut up) arm behind his head as he reclines on the couch. And he looked good that one time he forgot to bring clothes into the bathroom-- and, look, not that Murphy has like, fantasized about him coming out of the shower, steam billowing out of the doorway behind him and water snaking down the smooth expanse of his broad chest in glistening droplets, like they do in the movies, but-- and he bumbled out with his hair plastered to his head all stupid like half a coconut, bare feet slapping goofy-like and undeniably duck-ily against the hardwood as he cursed distractedly at Murphy’s booming, startled laughter from the kitchen. So, not like the movies. Just a grown man toddling out of the bath looking like an egghead and leaving annoying puddles of water everywhere. But awkward, and cute. Yeah, kind of cute.

Murphy sputters out of his thoughts, a dark tunnel of horrors where his brain apparently has no problem feeding him reaction words like ‘cute’ about thoughts of Bellamy Blake, who is never cute, only overbearing and annoying and bossy and sometimes maybe a little bit hot, objectively, when doing certain things, like: stretching, driving, cleaning, cooking, reading, laughing, smiling, yelling, sitting, standing, etc. But only occasionally, and objectively. Obviously.

But never cute.

Bellamy flushes a little bit as he toes on a pair of his cleaner shoes, avoiding Murphy’s prying, questioning eyes as he stares down at his feet. “At Tia’s last doctor’s appointment Dr. Martin kind of, uh, asked me out?” he stutters out, crouching a little to unfold the heel of his shoe out from under his foot.

“Oh,” Murphy blurts in a breathy, amused tone, despite a darker feeling pressing at the back of his mind, urgent but ultimately ignored. “Is she gonna pick you up at eight and pay for your dinner, too, Mr. Manly Man?”

Bellamy scoffs, face calming back to it’s normal caramel instead of glowing amber across his cheeks. “Oh, so you can paint your nails and wear eyeliner and little barrettes but one confident, forward woman makes the first move with me and suddenly you’re champion of gender roles?”

The paler man holds a slick, empty spoon in the air, pointedly not looking over his shoulder as Bellamy probably crosses his big, strong, stupid arms and does that awful, charming sly smile and, _ugh!_   Just, _ugh!_ “First of all, it almost sounds like you’re judging me for accentuating my better aspects, which wouldn’t kill you either, Sire of Boring Eyebrows-”

Bellamy grumbles something unintelligible but audibly insulting as Murphy barrels onward.

“Second of all, I’m just saying, you boast a big game on charming the ladies but some sweet, shy doctor beat you to the punch? Suspicious.”

A scoff resounds too loudly to be natural from the other room as Bellamy stomps into the kitchen, keys jingling in his pocket, and Murphy feels a sudden pang of something unidentifiable as he realizes he’s about to leave. For a date. With a woman. A really pretty, confident woman, he’s sure, which somehow makes the feeling pulsate more urgently against the base of his skull, slipping partially into his gut with a coldness. Maybe he’s sick. He used to get migraines. That might be it. Maybe he should go lay down-

“So not gender roles, just Bellamy roles?”

Murphy huffs, stirring the bowl of goo in his lap absently. “If an alien’s taken over my co-parent’s body to use them as a host I need to know.”

Bellamy laughs a little at that, a rare, treasured sound that fills Murphy with inexplicable pride, every time. “What, don’t think I’m capable of getting a date?”

“Quit twisting my words around. I just didn’t think your big threesome-inclined man ego was capable of a woman whisking you off of your feet.”

“So you _do_ think I’m capable of getting a date?”

Murphy’s face contorts strangely as he focuses on feeding on Costia, spoon airplane trembling slightly. “Expect mild turbulence,” he murmurs at the sight of her inquisitive head tilt, little round eyes trained on his fingers shaking the spoon like a maraca.

“Sure. You’re- uh, you know-” he waves his free hand vaguely around in dizzying circles behind him, unaware of the amused expression melting over Bellamy’s features.

“I’m what?”

“You know!” Murphy repeats, louder, firmer, frustration evident in his tone. “Ruggedly handsome, and- and mysterious and all that! Or whatever!” he practically shrieks, voice faltering from his usual rasping, emotionless tone, spine tensed as he pops the spoon out of Costia’s mouth and leaves her blinking in quick succession, startled. “Girls are into that, apparently!”

Bellamy fights the urge to pout over Murphy’s use of the description ‘mysterious’. Does he really keep that many secrets? Does Murphy know he hasn’t told Bellamy a thing about himself unless he was shitfaced at a wedding--

_A familiar wide hand slaps hard against Bellamy’s shoulders and then melts away from the stinging imprint loosely, the smell of champagne and something a little harder curling around from behind him and stirring up into his scrunched nose. Murphy’s a touchy drunk, and seems to forget where his friends end and his enemies begin. “You know I can sing any of this guy’s shit?” he boasts, piercing eyes scanning over the crowd of elegantly dressed bodies swaying in a half-moon around the two brides, Bob Dylan’s ‘Wedding Song’ rasping out of the pulsating speakers in a scratchy low-quality growl, the song slapped onto the playlist for name accuracy alone. Limbs wave unsurely amongst the jostling crowd of too many friends, too many family members to shake the hands of, all bumbling around to a song nobody really knows how to dance to._

_“You both sound like someone tossed your vocal chords in a dryer before they made it to your body, so I don’t doubt you.”_  
  
_Murphy laughs brightly into his face, clearly in his element being surrounded by booze and love, which he lazily mentions are his two favorite things. Bellamy ponders this, this fucking hurricane of cockiness and blank faces and apparently faux-hatred for all things around him, blurting out drunkenly that he just really, really loves love._

_His soft-looking lips are forming around the lyrics as he thinks along to the song, violet and blue lights crisscrossing over his smiling face, cheeks flushed as he eventually slinks away from Bellamy to join the bustling crowd stinking up a perfectly good velvet dance floor._

_John Murphy looks a little different the next time Bellamy sees him, edges a little softer, raucous laughter sounding less unbearable and more like the sound of someone who just really loves laughing, so fully and wholeheartedly that he lets it shake the walls and floors._

\--or crying---

_He drags a pinkie along the inner etching of the diamond-clutching ring, the carving whispering ‘in sickness’ against his fingertip. The wide band in Murphy’s palm echoes ‘and in health’ against the soft center of his hand._

_“He had lupus. I had the flu. We were poor, his lungs were shit, the rest is history.”_

_Bellamy lets out a long breath, grip tightening on the diamond ring, and he regrets his words the second they leave his lips. “What happened to your mom?”_

_A dark, sad, humorless laugh spirals into the warming air of the shop and dissipates just as quickly. “She found out vodka puts her to sleep faster than crying does. And, again, the rest is history.”_

_Bellamy swallows. “What happened to you?”_

_Murphy looks at him dangerously then, looking wide-eyed and broken for a second so fleeting that Bellamy isn't sure it really happened. His face steels quickly, sharply. “Got what I deserved,” he snaps, straightening up so suddenly that Bellamy’s head spins till he’s nauseous. Or maybe he already was. Murphy’s peeling away from him like a band-aid, Bellamy’s skin prickling as he rips himself off of the floor and starts slinking over to the forgotten broom._

_He thinks it was his fault, Bellamy realizes seconds too late, and he feels so drunk on the streetlights and the stories and Murphy’s hard voice dissolving into something so soft, only for him to hear, that his mouth starts moving without his permission. “I wrecked the car with my mom in the passenger seat and Octavia in the back. We were driving her to her first school dance,” he blurts out, brain promising him soothingly and stupidly that telling Murphy he killed his mom too would somehow comfort him._

_Murphy only glares. “Good for you.”_

_And that fucking hurts._

_Bellamy takes the broom from Murphy’s white-knuckled hands and shoves it into the corner, broods and bleeds all the way to the door and leaves the passenger side car door open for Murphy as he folds darkly behind the wheel, waiting._

_The boy hesitates before he gets in the car, buckling the seat belt quicker than he normally does. Bellamy reminds himself to lock Murphy in his own room if he ever catches the flu. The fucker._

_So much for bonding._

\--Seriously, who is John fucking Murphy calling mysterious?

“And you’re not into it?” Bellamy retorts bitingly before his thoughts spiral and darken any further, but wants to clap a hand over his mouth as soon as it spills out. He doesn’t want to hear the answer to that.

Instead of laughing at him, sneering and picking him apart at the seams with every acutely specific and accurate jab at Bellamy’s insecurities, instead of flinching away from the suggestiveness, looking at Bellamy with disgust and contempt-- Murphy blushes.

Normally, he’d miss it. Too wrapped up in his own thoughts and consumed by his obliviousness to Murphy’s abnormal and more miniscule facial expressions-- he has considered putting up a facial recognition chart in the guy’s bedroom, just to teach him how to properly use the many partially-mobile assets of his face-- but this time he sees it for what it is.

Murphy’s _blushing._

“N-no?” he says, like he’s not totally sure, but still forcibly firm. “I prefer my men, uh, neat, not all purposefully dirty-looking and tousled," Murphy lies through his teeth. "Maybe _your_ admirers are into the whole island survival reality show look-”

Murphy stops short as he turns to look at Bellamy, who’s grabbed his reading glasses from the counter and buttoned up his shirt a little higher, who’s holding the curls away from his forehead and looking inquisitively at Murphy, who lets out a strangled noise.

“How about now?”

Murphy groans, head snapping away as he hunches over the bowl and rapid-fire feeds Costia, spoonful after spoonful jamming it’s way between her lips until she has to hold up her hands while she mouths at the goop, eyes crinkled in annoyance. “You look like a fucking dork accountant. S-suits you.”

Bellamy laughs, pleasantly and a little confused by the redness blanketing over Murphy’s pale ears, and redoes his original look as he makes his way to the door.

“Might be home late, or not at all, hopefully. Can you put Costia to bed?” he says distractedly as he surveys a jacket hanging on a hook by the door, wondering if the weather calls for it or not.

That familiar feeling of... something red. A dark, unfamiliar crimson pooling in the recesses of his mind that Murphy can only describe as anger, but that’s not quite it. It comes back, hitting him hard behind the ears, swatting at him like he’s supposed to do something about it.

He shrugs.

“I think I can handle it.”

There’s a heat behind his eyes when Bellamy slams the door closed behind him, picture of the three of them trembling over the mantle. When he leaves Murphy alone in the quiet house that still isn’t quite his, with the baby that isn’t quite his, tilting her head at him cautiously, like she can see the dam about to burst.

What’s _wrong_ with him?

*******

Bellamy laughs in all the right places, smiles charmingly at the waiter, at Gina. Orders a fairly nice bottle of wine, tries to pronounce something French and blurts out an adoring laugh when she snatches the menu from him and just points at it for the waiter. They talk about their jobs, about their families, about their hobbies and interests. Her favorite color is magenta, her favorite book is _Three Men in a Boat_ for reasons that Bellamy can’t discern, her favorite show is _The Walking Dead,_ her favorite food is french fries, her favorite drink is cinnamon apple cider. She laughs at his jokes, she traces the veins of his wrist with a finger, soft skin meeting his atop a silky tablecloth. He pretends his life is normal, pretends he lives alone in his apartment furnished for one, pretends he regularly goes on fancy dates with nice women who he met at work and not at his not-daughter’s pediatric appointments, and the illusion is perfect.

Then she goes and ruins it all.

“What’s it like? Raising a kid with some random man?”

Bellamy looks up from his food, fork stuttering against the porcelain surface. “Oh, Murphy? He’s... alright.”

He doesn’t want to think about Murphy, he decides, pushing his food around. He wants to have a nice date with Gina, who’s charming and sweet and kind and intelligent and everything his housemate isn’t.

She pushes. “Just alright? I mean, you’d have to get along with someone pretty well to raise a child successfully, right?”

The white tip of her nail never stops running soothingly over the skin of his wrist. He feels exposed now, crisp wind hitting something personal that she’s torn the heavy curtain away from. Murphy isn’t... he doesn’t...

He doesn’t talk about Murphy. He doesn’t _want_ to talk about Murphy.

“He, uh-” Bellamy clears his throat. “He’s kind of funny, sometimes. Tolerable. We’re okay.”

She isn’t looking for reassurance. She wants to know him. She wants to hear the real details of Bellamy’s personal life, not his favorite type of wine, not the most historically accurate war film he’s ever seen, in his personal opinion. She wants to know Murphy, to know Costia.

He feels himself tug involuntarily on his own arm, illusion slipping and slipping and slipping as she cracks him open and fishes out what’s _his._

The rational part of him knows she’s only trying to get to know him, thinks he might like to waste some time telling her silly anecdotes about his upside-down lifestyle, two men and a baby in their dead friend’s house, but his fingers curl and he pulls his hand away from hers and to his glass, tipping back the shallow puddle of wine swirling in the bottom of it.

She opens her mouth again, but whatever well-meaning, innocent question floats out is lost on him as his phone rings, shaking urgently in his pocket. He checks the screen discreetly, murmuring “Sorry,” as she smiles sweetly and breaks a breadstick, picking at it.

Murphy.

“He, um, he never calls me. So it’s probably- do you mind if I take this?”

“No problem,” she says, genuine and casual as always, despite Bellamy’s strange behavior, his soreness.

He raises the phone to his ear, but words are already tumbling out of the speaker.

_“-won’t go to sleep! She just keeps screaming and snotting all over me! I’ve tried everything! I fed her and checked her diaper and rocked her and even put her in my bed and she’s still losing it! I-”_

“Murphy, slow down,” Bellamy whispers, Gina glancing up from her food cautiously at the sound of his name, at Bellamy’s hushed tone. “Did you put that raccoon thing in her crib with her?”

 _“Yes!”_ Murphy shrieks into the phone, sounding indignant and frustrated, and Bellamy can hear the faint wail of a child in the background, high-pitched and exasperated and distinctly Costia. _“Can’t you just come back for a few minutes, just to put her down? You said she needs a schedule, you said that! And I need my schedule, I’ve got work tomorrow, you know! Just for a few minutes?”_ he pleads, sounding agonized under the piercing screech of the banshee audibly stomping in her crib.

“I- I’m a little preoccupied-” Bellamy starts, but Murphy hisses loudly into the phone to shut him up.

 _“I know,”_   he says seriously, after the angry cat noises. _“I’m sorry. Just- please?”_

Bellamy closes his eyes, a long sigh heaving out of him, before someone taps his hand lightly. Gina smiles understandingly. “If you need to go, it’s okay. We can always pick this back up another day.”

He was graced with the presence of such a beautiful, thoughtful woman, and yet he recoiled from her for asking about the two screaming demons in his phone. What’s wrong with him?

“I’m so sorry, Gina. I-” he starts, fumbling as he tugs his coat on, leaving two twenties on the table by her abandoned hand in a flurry, wrinkling them against the edges of his wallet as he stutters out an apology. “I’m really- I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m sorry, I promise we’ll continue this soon, alright?”

“No worries,” she says, sliding out from her seat to tug on the lapels of his coat and press a chaste kiss to the freckles on his cheek. He flushes, despite his confusion, despite his disappointment. “Dinner gets cut short sometimes. I get it. You’re a dad, after all.”

He stumbles to the door like a dead man. His hands grip the steering wheel like the claws of a crane as he drives back to his house of horrors, headlights sweeping golden and dizzily across the asphalt as he swerves a little, knuckles white as a hauntingly awakening set of words bangs around in his otherwise empty head.

_You’re a dad, after all._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bellamy machine broke


	15. dear in the headlights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i literally ran out of lyrics on the song i was using for chapter titles so now im just making them whatever i want which is tacky and annoying but isnt everything about this fic? haha
> 
> please enjoy i had a lot of fun with this one, which is very much a character study-esque chapter so i hope zat u like it

When Bellamy pushes the door open with trembling hands and a sickly pallor to his face, the edge of it bumps against a crouched form and knocks him back onto the porch.

“Bellamy!” Murphy cries, jumping up from the floor in front of the front door like a puppy waiting for their human to come home, Costia wailing in his arms. “Help!” he demands, shoving her forward and above his head like Simba, her legs kicking furiously as she screams out her frustrations.

The older man takes her, cradling her more awkwardly than usual and clearing his throat too many times as he rocks her, door clamping closed softly behind him. Murphy looks him up and down warily as he swallows, listening to her cries dialing down only a minuscule amount, crashing over them like waves, rising in pitch incrementally. “What’s gotten into _you?"_

“You mean other than getting interrupted on my first date in four years to come home to my helpless housemate and a screaming kid?" he snarks, and then wilts. "I’m too sober for this.”

Murphy shifts from one foot to the other, face flashing between guilt and defensiveness. He knows he fucked up, but hell would freeze over if he admitted it. So he scratches at the back of his scalp, eyes trained somewhere near Bellamy’s hip carefully, dazedly. “I’d say we could fix that, but I’m guessing you’d like to be able to drive back to your doctor,” he murmurs. And then, voice an octave lower, “Sorry, again.”

He says nothing about his lack of plans to go try and revive a dead date, but Bellamy’s gaze flutters from his crestfallen face to Costia’s pursed lips as she punches the air and squirms, whining and huffing loudly, restless. Drive.

“Let’s take her for a car ride.”

Murphy squints at him inquisitively, dubious.

“Kids like that. It used to knock Octavia right out, I promise,” Bellamy insists, already making his way out the door, Costia bundled in his arms and screeching the birds and their night songs right out of the trees.

By the time Bellamy’s reached the car and is nudging the backdoor open with a hip to strap a writhing Costia into her seat, Murphy finally sighs from the front porch and tiptoes across the gravel slowly, wincing, in just his socks. “If you’re about to murder us and dump us both in an alley, could you drop me in the one behind my work? Maybe with like a little Christmas bow on my forehead?” he murmurs, stumbling and hissing over the sharp, tiny rocks until he throws himself into the passenger seat. Bellamy lets out a huffy breath, the closest thing that Murphy’s gonna get to a laugh from him at the moment, and cranks the keys in the ignition.

“If I’m gonna kill someone, it’d probably be best not to announce it,” he responds half-heartedly, but it makes a small grin appear on Murphy’s face as they rumble out of the driveway, and Bellamy can’t help but notice in the soft crimson glow that his seat belt isn’t on until the first stoplight they hit, unlike when he made a big, shitty deal of pretending he was afraid to let Bellamy drive that late afternoon in the shop.

Huh.

Costia whines again from the backseat before he can think about it too much, heels beating against the edge of her seat rapid-fire and furiously, but she already seems quieter, vocally.

“Told you so,” Bellamy sneers as Murphy peers curiously over his shoulder at the barely-rattling carrier, and the younger man simply swings a loose fist and bumps it against Bellamy’s chest in retaliation, still smiling as he runs his fingers along the rough edge of the belt across his chest, eyes darting around everything they pass.

Bellamy’s always been more of a daydreamer in the passenger seat, eyes locked dazedly on the road melting away under their wheels, not really seeing anything at all-- but Murphy, he looks at everything. He sees the buildings- here they are made of neatly-lain brick, all fresh oranges and reds and not crumbling apart quite yet-- he sees the trees-- they’re still green in the last leg of summer, but the most impatient of them are flashing soft yellows at the tips of their many leaves-- he sees the people-- a woman laughing as she pumps her gas, another girl leaning on the hood of the car and talking animatedly, a child and a father taping a missing dog poster to a lamppost, a homeless man crouched at the corner of the intersection with a paper cup and a blank slab of cardboard. Murphy meets Bellamy’s eyes and nods, smiling a little exasperatedly, eyes softening as Bellamy clambers out of the car and empties the contents of his wallet into the paper cup, no surprise there. Cars honk, people shouting as traffic builds up behind their parked car, while Bellamy shakes the hand of the man and talks quietly with him. Murphy rolls down the window and leans out of it, holding a middle finger high in the air as he watches his friend clap the old man on the shoulder and wish him luck, and both he and Bellamy laugh brightly at Murphy’s high-flying bird, his show of support from the car window. The man murmurs something to Bellamy then, patting his hand gently, and Bellamy looks up at Murphy strangely, before making his way back to the car.

Bellamy ignores the line of cars behind him as the stoplight flickers back to red again, feeling only a little guilty for holding them back. Murphy gives him a lopsided grin as he buckles himself into his seat and shifts the car out of park, saying “We’re gonna go broke if you do that every time.”

Bellamy just shrugs. Murphy doesn’t look angry. “You’re too heroic for your own good sometimes.”

The eldest of the two chuckles, bewildered. “Heroic? I only had like thirty bucks in there.”

Murphy looks at him then, like he’s stupid, murmuring “Green” to remind him to move, and then the breeze is combing through his hair as Bellamy pulls forward and starts winding through open country roads at last. The other man sticks his arm out of the window and weaves his fingers through the air hissing sharply and quickly between them, experimenting with the force of the wind. “You know he’s probably only been given like four pennies and a half-eaten burrito today? People aren’t all as good you, Bellamy.”

Bellamy frowns. “You ever get tired of being so cynical all the damn time?”

Murphy kicks his feet up on the dash, eyes trained on the blur of dulling golden piles of hay flashing by them under a deep moonlight in a neglected field. “They aren’t. People are selfish, they just take and lie and hurt. People are shit. But you’re a good guy, Bell,” he says, so casually, like ‘Bell’ doesn’t make freckled hands tighten around the leather edge of the wheel, like his words haven’t lit a fire in his stomach, made his face burn with the colors of autumn.

_You’re a good guy, Bell._

Bellamy stays quiet for a moment too long, but Murphy seems content with playing with the breeze whistling between his fingers, whipping through his hair. His eyes are pulled closed softly against the sting of it, lips quirked in a soft, pleased little smile that doesn’t look right on him at all, but still makes Bellamy squirm.

“You’re not shit,” he murmurs quietly, half hoping Murphy won’t even hear it.

But of course he does.

“Sure I am, no big deal,” he shrugs. Bellamy’s brow knit together involuntarily.

“You’re not. This whole anarchist villain vibe you’re grasping at is not a great look on you.”

Murphy’s hand falters, stuttering against its flow smooth between swirls of wind. He doesn’t speak. Bellamy doesn’t know what he wants him to say.

“I know you jeopardize your own job to help me with mine, I’m not stupid.”

Murphy swallows. “I can always get a new cook job. Your shop is more important.”

Bellamy’s frown deepens. “I know you wish you’d have died instead of your parents,” he says, low. Murphy flinches, hand going limp against the curve of the glass as he looks wide-eyed and furious at Bellamy. “I know when you were sixteen you stole a car to drive your foster sister to the hospital when your foster parents wouldn’t, I looked you up. I’m sure that ended well for you.” he says before Murphy can speak, the pale man’s mouth opening and closing soundlessly. “When you were drunk three weeks ago you bragged about how one time you pushed a total stranger out of the way of a moving car and broke your left arm, and then you got him a job in your kitchen,” Bellamy continues, voice taking on a tone of exasperated disbelief as Murphy hangs his head and tries to mumble explanations for why all of it was nothing.

“I know you didn’t have to give up your life to raise Tia with me,” he blurts out, forceful and loud over Murphy’s quiet protestations.

The boy’s face contorts. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bellamy shrugs. “Sorry to break it to you, Murphy, but you’re a good person too.”

His face falters from anger and misplaced fear to something embarrassed, something conflicted. Bellamy wonders if he’s ever heard that sentence before.

“Whatever helps you sleep in the same house as me at night,” he decides on, snapping his gaze back to the kaleidoscope of night-darkened forest hues along the edges of the curving road, cheeks burning bright red, forehead wrinkled up and brows pinched tight.

Bellamy figures he won’t get any further with him, so he lets it go.

*******

_“You and your friend seem like real great young men. God bless you both,” the man nods, patting the back of Bellamy’s hand with a calloused, age-spotted palm. Bellamy laughs gently, pulling away to glance at Murphy, hanging out of the window and flipping off a line of cars in his defense._

_“Yeah. He’s a pretty good guy,” Bellamy says dumbly, looking at Murphy like he’s never seen him before._

_He is, isn’t he?_

*******

“She’s asleep,” Murphy murmurs, rubbing at his eyes lazily as he twists around in his seat.

“Am I always right, or am I always right?” Bellamy teases, turning the radio down a little from where Murphy’s been humming vigorously along with classic rock songs that the other man’s never heard in his life, dancing in his seat.

Bellamy hates that he knows he’ll be thinking of Murphy shifting his shoulders, tapping his feet and wiggling his hips in his seat, doing round after round of invisible drums as if the shitty music had possessed him.

Murphy sneers tiredly, yawning as he wipes at his eyes under the honey toss of a yellow traffic light.

“It’s late. Want me to fill in at work for you tomorrow?” Bellamy offers only half-genuinely, and Murphy snorts, head resting peacefully against the edge of his window.

“Can you make a sandwich?’

“Not... well?”

Murphy laughs softly, so gently that it makes Bellamy’s heart hurt for reasons unbeknownst to him. He doesn’t know this Murphy, sweet and sleepy and genuine, isn’t sure that he likes him. He’s a little freaked out, reasonably.

“I’ll be... fine...” he murmurs between yawns, eyes fluttering closed.

Bellamy tries to drive a little slower, a little smoother.

*******

He unbuckles Costia and closes the door quietly, creeping across the sharp crunch of gravel and easing the creaking doors open with a grimace, but he makes it to her little jungle crib relatively safely and she only sighs softly when her back hits the thin mattress, mobile twinkling as Bellamy accidentally smacks his giant head against it pulling away.

He collapses against the couch when he makes it back down the stairs without issue, remote power button under his finger before he realizes the front door is still sweeping in cold air and cricket chirps, and there’s no grumbling, shuffling, cursing, no “Night, Bellamy”.

He’ll just leave him. Murphy’s a big boy, he’ll wake up and come in eventually.

...

Bellamy puts the remote down, reasoning that it’s very cold tonight, and he doesn’t make enough money on his own to provide for Costia if Murphy dies of hypothermia, that’s all.

He clicks open the passenger side car door quietly and shakes Murphy by the shoulder, who groans.

“Murphy, you’re drooling on my seat, get out.”

A tuft of brown hair lolls to the side, mouth hanging open. Bellamy shakes him again, and a small growl breaks out of Murphy, whose fingers twitch as if he means to swat at the nuisance but doesn’t have the energy.

“Murphy, get up,” Bellamy demands, a little louder, forcibly unbuckling his seat belt and patting his cheek, which is weirdly softer than Bellamy imagined. What? Nothing. No it’s not. Who said that?

“Make me, asshole,” he grumbles stupidly, another dewdrop of drool pooling at the corner of his parted lips, and Bellamy sighs, before making the executive decision to heave his surprisingly heavy body over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“If you insist,” he grumbles, kicking the door shut and hiking up the driveway to the door, up the stairs, pointedly ignoring the fluttering in his gut at the feeling of the notched spine under his hand, the soft hip underneath the other, an overwhelming warmth draped over him like a blanket fresh out of the dryer.

He drops Murphy into the bed rather unceremoniously, but something keeps him rooted to where he stands.

Fuck it, he decides, giving in to his paternal urges and slipping Murphy’s sneakers off, tugging the blanket out from under his splayed out body and tossing it over him as carelessly as his brain will allow.

But he doesn’t like the way it lands over Murphy’s face, so he pulls it back down a little.

He still looks cold, Bellamy decides, tucking it as discreetly as possible underneath Murphy’s shoulders, and then steps back to admire his handiwork.

Murphy looks like the head of a caterpillar peeking out of a warm cocoon, hair tossed up against the pillows and face lax and peaceful as his chest rises and falls underneath the comforter. Bellamy pockets his hands, satisfied, and starts to make his way out of the room. He checks over his shoulder one last time as he reaches the doorway.

One blue eye cracked open and looking at Bellamy’s retreating figure curiously snaps shut.

Bellamy flushes from head to toe as he shuts the door a little too hard behind him. _“You’ve been found out! Found out!”_ his brain wails, sirens going off as he leans against the wall, heartbeat pounding in his ears urgently.

 _Found out what?_   he argues, exasperated, exhausted. _Found out that I care about him? So what?_

 

 _Oh,_ he thinks.

 

_Oh._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿


	16. too sweet for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PFFT!!!!! THIS IS THE MOST CORNY UNAPOLOGETICALLY FLUFFY SHIT I'VE EVER POSTED DONT LAUGH AT ME

 

The pillow wraps around his head like cotton, curses of “Motherfucker, fucking motherfucker fucking fuck, fuck you, fuck this, fuck that, fuck all of this” seeping into the fabric like water. He’d deny it, but were anyone watching him, they would’ve seen Murphy kick his feet against the mattress, push his toes against it and flex his entire body, and scream into the mattress.

He sinks back down onto weak limbs like putty, giving a hysterical puff of laughter before swiping a hand to knock every last doodad off of the nightstand like a tablecloth trick.

Allow him to explain.

*******

It all starts a week ago when Bellamy puts his phone down during the middle of their Wednesday night unsolved crime-based gambling rounds, having been scrolling through search results discreetly the entire time instead of investing a little bit of pity-sourced interest in the episode, like a traitor.

“I can see your phone glowing, fool,” Murphy says, chucking a popcorn kernel at the other man’s ear. Bellamy phone locks with a soft shuttering sound and falls face-down by his hip, before he’s toppling over to leave the back of his neck curving over the soft place between Murphy’s knee and upper thigh, heaving out a sigh.

Murphy’s hands are still hovering high above the warm swirl of chestnut hair when Bellamy glances at him upside down, and he clenches them into fists when they start shaking without his direction to do so. _Since when do they do this? Is this cuddling? Are they cuddling?_ Why _are they cuddling?_

“Where would you take a doctor on a date?”

The butterflies in his belly simmer down, perching on his ribs for later takeoff. He isn’t sure he much likes the infamous Dr. Martin. Not much at all.

He shrugs, one arm sewing itself hot and unsure against the armrest of the couch, the other curling awkwardly behind his own head. He hopes it passes as casual lounging and not a contortionist act. “The hospital? I don’t know, man. People really go on dates?”

Bellamy twists his neck at a clearly uncomfortable angle to get a better look at Murphy from his lap, brows quirked incredulously, frown tugging at his lips.

 _“How about now?”_ says a butterfly in his gut, and Murphy envisions crushing it between his palms. He tries his hardest to keep his eyes on the television screen, which is not very hard at all, considering if he looks down and sees those two raw, sweet, umber pearls peering up at him, sees the muscled shoulder pressing up against his hip firm enough to leave the lines from his jeans tattooed pink into his skin-- he’ll probably throw up.

“Have you never been on a date, Murphy?”

His hands twitch, they mean to snap together like magnets and start a series of bop its, twist its, and pull its as his nerves tremble under the surface, but at the risk of smothering Bellamy’s view and chasing him away from Murphy’s lap; which is a position he really shouldn’t want to be in, but the heart wants it wants.

And the heart’s a real traitorous bitch, isn’t it?

“Emori was always too busy,” he shrugs, using the hand not tucked in the sweltering sauna between his neck and the couch cushion to pick at his teeth, feigning carelessness.

Bellamy hesitates. “Miller?”

Murphy huffs, childishly. “I know you know that me and Miller aren’t a thing, so why do you keep doing that?” He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels like drawing his leg away, when moments ago all he wanted was to be closer. The heart is opposed to what it is opposed to.

And the heart’s a real sensitive bitch.

Bellamy almost sounds like he’s pouting, averting his eyes to the murder mystery they’re no longer invested in. “First of all, 'Miller and I'. Second of all, so the kissing and the sex is just guys being dudes? Where can I get a friendship like that?”

Murphy cracks his knuckles against Bellamy’s phone case, despite two sets of faces burning hot at Bellamy’s sudden bluntness. “Let me just call Miller real quick and tell him we’re being slutshamed, see how easy it is to crack the left mirror of your car with an elbow,” he tries to joke, shifting, and Bellamy blinks up at him with an unidentifiable emotion flickering across a hard-set face.

Strangely enough, the silence manages to convince Murphy to toss Bellamy a bone.

“If you’re really so determined to write a dissertation on the nature of our relationship, I’ll break it down for you,” Murphy starts, confidence faltering as Bellamy tilts his gaze back up curiously, a little defensively, like he wants to try and argue against Murphy’s claims about his obsession with Nathan Miller and the Great Fucking Dilemma, Literally. “We’re just friends. I had a thing for him, but he wasn’t “into me that way”, shocker-” Bellamy’s frown deepens, Murphy doesn’t stop to consider why. “He got dumped by “the love of his life” Bryan a couple years ago, I jumped at the chance to be a replacement because I’m an idiot,” Bellamy swallows, brows knitting. “The, uh, relationship thing that I was envisioning didn’t really make it off the motivation board, but we still bang every once in a blue moon, him out of pity and me out of...”

_Loneliness. Hopeless romanticism. Trying not to feel so fucking dead all the time. Trying not to feel like the shittiest piece of shit to ever shit on the earth by convincing himself someone wants him._

He trails off self-consciously, the warm nape of Bellamy’s neck against his thigh the only thing keeping him from instinctively curling in on himself.

Bellamy looks sad. That’s the only way Murphy can explain the twist to his brows, the faint-edged triangle pushing at the skin of his locked jaw, the softening, shrinking of his eyes. He looks sad.

More pity. Great. Just fanfuckingtastic.

Murphy’s so busy beating himself up inside-- eyes glazed over with a milky haze as he watches the dandelions printed on the den rug twirl and spin in an imagined hurricane, thinking, no, _knowing_ he said too much-- he doesn’t notice Bellamy turning over and pushing his cheek against Murphy’s leg sleepily, tucking a cold, calloused, needle-pricked hand under Murphy’s knee.

“Well, I’m gonna take you on a date,” Bellamy mumbles, words laced with peace and a tinge of hope forged in sadness, a sharp golden sword, glittering blue and gleaming sun and piercing Murphy right through the fluttering heart ‘til his breath hitches in his throat and Bellamy’s sound asleep on his thigh.

And the heart’s a real hopeful, stupid bitch, isn’t it?

*******

Oh, that’s not all.

Allow Murphy to finish.

*******

Then, it’s a week later.

Bellamy’s scraping golden coins off of a lightning-patterned carpet, wincing at each loud slap of the soles of Murphy’s old tennis shoes against flashing crimson buttons, his sharp curses as people guide their children away with hands over their ears.

“Take that, fuckin’ leg bitch,” he swears, stomping another fading sticker of a spider as the buttons light up periodically, feet stamping down arcade game bugs at an exhausting pace. He _had_   to put the game on the highest difficulty level.

“Leg bitch,” Bellamy admonishes, amused gaze locked onto Murphy, the cinnamon hair swinging free from behind his ears, Sharpie-scribbled sneakers criss-crossing and stomping and jumping, a look of intense focus glued to his features.

If Murphy would look up, he’d see this:

Bellamy leaning against an arcade machine with his cheek propped in his hand, admiring smile playing at his lips, tickets draped over his shoulders and drooping out of his pockets like weeping vines, colors flashing about every angle of his face and chimes of winning scores harassing his ears, and yet he isn’t looking at much more than Murphy’s face frozen in a breathless laugh as he finally stumbles off of the platform.

But of course, as is the way of the world, he doesn’t.

Murphy tries not to look too giddy when Bellamy bumps his hip, pointing at some stupid claw machine game. “What about that one?”

“No tickets, plus, nobody wins those, it’s a corporate scam,” Murphy says matter-of-factly, sauntering past it, but when he turns, Bellamy’s already wasted two coins and is maneuvering the spidery grabber towards a stuffed lizard, scales shimmering over its soft back as the sharp silver fingers of the claw pinch at its sides and heave it up. Bellamy drops it into the corner slot without issue or flourish and presents it to Murphy before the man can even pick his jaw up off of the floor.

“Why do _I_   get it?” he says, turning it over in his hands, and a funny look crosses over Bellamy’s face, lips twitching. Murphy catches his reflection in the blank face of an unplugged machine. Oh. Murphy elbows him hard enough to make Bellamy gasp and then bark out a laugh. “Shut up.”

He tucks it protectively under his arm and names it Mothman, and Bellamy teases him, mocking him as if he’s clutching the plushie against his heart. Which, he is certainly _not._

“What, you gonna stand behind me and hold my hand to teach me how to use a joystick like they do in the movies? Can’t get any cheesier, right?” Murphy retaliates, and Bellamy laughs even as his cheeks flush a little at that, eyes bright with mirth as he starts feeding their tickets into a counting machine, strip after strip.

Little does Murphy know it was definitely on the agenda.

“Jesus, Murph,” Murphy’s heart stutters; _don’t do that._ “One thousand and eighty-two.”

Murphy plucks the paper counting their tickets out of Bellamy’s hands and snorts. “I’ve done better. I was off my game today. Split it down the middle?”

Bellamy shrugs, nudging him towards the counter full of junk that they’ll probably trash before they get home at the risk of Costia literally eating all of it.

Bellamy:  
Three bendy pencils.  
Four textured bookmarks.  
One blue ring-pop.

Murphy:  
Three Pixie Stix.  
Twelve sticky-men wall crawlers.

Bellamy wonders if it was a fair trade for thirty bucks worth of arcade coins, but finds himself not caring when Murphy rushes ahead of him out the door and does a full three-sixty to slam a red sticky-man against the arcade building’s brick, roaring out a laugh of satisfaction when the little guy clings to the wall, as expected.

If Murphy had stopped waltzing amidst the streetlights and parking lot dashes, flinging little wall crawlers at car windows long enough to look over his shoulder, he would’ve seen Bellamy coming to a realization of grand proportions.

But, of course, he did not.

As is the way of the world.

*******

A lamppost flickers and another car speeds by in a blur of scuffed blue paint, “Six”, and headlights like narrow, glowing eyes. Murphy kicks his feet as he rips open the last of his Pixie Stix and shakes the contents into his palm, Bellamy leaning against the opened edge of the trunk as they hang out the back of his car in a Chuck E. Cheese’s parking lot like a couple of delinquents or a pair of tired dads.

Both of which would somehow be true.

“You’re not supposed to eat them that way,” Bellamy nags, popping a blue candy diamond from between violet-stained lips to scold Murphy.

“Sure you are, if you get the paper wet the sugar won’t come out,” Murphy reasons, looking out over the street at a flash of crimson and dark wheels tumbling up to the crossroads. “Nine.”

Bellamy pouts, and Murphy tries not to stare too hard at the purple lip folded forward far enough to make a crescent moon where chapped, violet skin meets wet, soft pink. It’s a weird thing to be intrigued by, and Murphy doesn’t even like the taste of blue candy, but-

“It’s not fair, red’s a more common color,” he says, and Murphy shrugs unsympathetically, peeling a wall crawler off of Bellamy’s shorts-clad leg, tearing up a few leg hairs as he goes. Bellamy hisses, slapping at the sticky man’s little sticky hands.

“You’ve tainted him,” Murphy observes, peeling a piece of hair from the sticky polymer surface of the toy and flicking it onto the asphalt. “And you should have called red first if you wanted red, not my fault you never pick your color fast enough. Ten,” he adds as another red car blasts by much too fast for the city roads, gust of wind flustering Murphy’s tucked-back hair and Bellamy’s momentarily tamed curls, and fanning some sugar crystals away from Murphy’s sticky palm.

Bellamy leans over, ring pop making a beeline slash nosedive, beedive if you will, towards the sugar field in the other man’s hand. Murphy yanks his palm away with a quirked brow. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The freckled man freezes mid-lean, puppy dog expression flashing into functionality without pause. “Getting some sugar.”

“You want sugar on your candy?” Murphy clarifies, looking at him incredulously as Bellamy looms over him, trapping him in the corner of the trunk.

“Gimme’ some sugar,” Bellamy repeats, and the word choice has Murphy spluttering, shaking his head and pulling further away, if possible.

“Don’t say it like that!” he practically squeaks, laugh betraying his demands. “And no! My sugar will get all blue! Haven’t you done enough?” he insists, gesturing with mock-frustration at the hair-decorated sticky-man lying dead between their legs.

And then Bellamy does the worst thing in the entirely of the world ever.

He grabs Murphy’s wrist, leans forward, and licks his palm, lapping up a tongueful of sugar and then popping his blue sucker right back into his mouth and staring out across the road like he hadn’t done a goddamn thing in the world wrong.

Murphy’s left frozen, face flushed bright pink, shrunken down in the corner, palm outstretched with a clean line through the sugar slathered over pale skin.

And then Bellamy turns to him, teeth cracking into the lollipop as he grows impatient and starts chewing it, and says with his violet-lips sparkled with fresh, stolen sugar, “Good date?” and then hops off of the edge of the trunk and walks around to the driver’s seat.

He calls out, “Seven!” at the crossing of a blueberry scooter and slams his door. And big, bad, confident Murphy can do nothing but whimper in the raw silence.

*******

Bellamy walks him to his room, and Murphy laughs the whole way, cheeks pink when they reach the door, and he allows his hand not clutching arcade junk to linger on the doorknob playfully, just for the sake of the whole charade.

“Dinner’s on me next time,” he jokes in a croaky whisper so as not to wake the sleeping baby, and Bellamy’s (still stained violet) lips quirk into a genuine grin.

“Babysitter’s free again Sunday night,” he says, no ounce of dishonesty in his voice, and Murphy breath catches in his throat like a rock. “New Filipino grill opened up down the block, conveniently. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

The shorter man tries not to shrink under Bellamy’s gaze as he turns around to head back down the stairs, genuine joy on that stupid freckled face as he gives a little wave and disappears to the first floor.

*******

And that’s how he ended up here, slamming his fists into a pillow until his limbs give out and he flops down on his back with a stuttered breath of exasperation, of misplaced anger and frustration.

He rolls over to a lumpy sensation, and tugs out a squishy little stuffed lizard from under his belly. He chucks it at the door and it lands with a sad _‘fwump’_ on the carpet, Mothman toppling over from the neglect.

John Murphy, bringer of death and deliverer of pain, has been effectively reduced to a pile of trembling rage, anxiety and like-like, squealing into a pillow like a middle-school girl.

Being empty was so much simpler than this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was... the cheesiest thing... i have ever... laid my grubby little hands on... im glad i did it officer and i'd do it again too
> 
>  
> 
> anywhomstve; savour it bc shit goes down Very soon and im sorry in advance. it's been too happy for too long time 2 suffer
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> hey it's uhhhhh jen i've just started school and i'm taking like four AP courses at once and im very overwhelmed and im also in a creative writing class so im pretty much drained of any reading or writing ability right now and the next few chapters are very slow coming so consider this fic on hiatus for a little while :( i should pick it back up relatively soon, i promise i won't abandon it! thank you so much for reading and commenting and if you're actually invested in this for some reason i'm very sorry for the painful update times that are about to arrive :( but i WILL finish this!


	17. rose gold bones & the destruction of joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO IM BACK IM SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG THERE'S SO MUCH GOING ON I HATE SCHOOL <33
> 
> this chapter is. the obligatory chapter. occasionally dirty awkward prose where bellamy rambles about dicks and honey if that interests u

 

   It’s a little stupid, really.

How everything starts going up in flames.

*******

   He’s not sure how they ended up here, sprawled out on the daisy rug, tangled in a nest of quilts and letter blocks and stuffed raccoons of various sizes. He recalls shouting over Murphy about bringing junk into the living room every night and then leaving it there; recalls withering as Costia gives him big, bobbling, wet goldfish eyes and nestles against two of the accused raccoons protectively. He remembers Murphy’s nectarine lips puckering into a pout as little Tia wiggled underneath his arms holding the blankets high, a tiny cygnet hiding under swan wings. He lifted up a second wing, and Tia leaned over the man’s rib cage and patted the empty space with a little palm, copying Murphy’s big, dramatic pout, enhanced with weapons-grade puppy-dog eyes. Bellamy does, unfortunately, fully recall sinking to his knees and rolling up underneath the pile of quilts, Murphy’s lean body a warm line fitted softly against his side.

“Why,” Bellamy finally speaks up after a peaceful moment of soft breaths and the tinkling of Costia’s toys in her tired, fumbling hands, “Are we on the floor?”

Murphy shifts to look at him, sharp nose millimeters away from sideswiping Bellamy’s quickly warming skin. A set of sea-glass irises go cross-eyed as Murphy shrugs against the base of the nest. “Tia couldn’t get comfortable in her crib. Took it upon myself to invoke my creative prowess and superior problem-solving skills.”

Bellamy’s resolve softens. “How fatherly of you,” he says, half-joking.

“I try,” Murphy croaks out, sounding almost awkward as his gaze flashes away and darts to the ceiling at the almost-compliment. Costia, inevitably, grows bored of her jinglebells and teddy ears and who’s-it-what’s-its and pushes an itty-bitty leg over Murphy’s ribs, shifting her whole body to starfish hug him, like they apparently do.

Bellamy’s heart pounds in a swirl of pulsing heat, flowers blooming behind his eyes as Murphy melts under the contact and pushes his nose around in her floury hair like an inquisitive puppy. Two chests rise and fall softly in unison, long enough for Costia to grow bored of this too. She props her chin in the dip of his sternum and puckers her lips at him. Bellamy watches the interaction curiously, feeling as if he’s intruding on a private moment between an almost-father and his barely-daughter.

“Smoogin,” Costia says. Murphy quirks a happy brow, lips down-turned but eyes alight with calm elation, soothed affection. Bellamy thinks his bones have turned to honey and are weaving and sloshing, golden and hopeless around beneath his skin; thinks he’ll never be able to stand up again.

“Su-sumoon-” she stutters, tongue heavy and awkward and young in her gummy mouth.

“Ah,” Murphy says, a strange, airy huff of laughter puffing out from between his lips. “Smoochies,” he translates, tilting his head towards Bellamy. The latter nods seriously as if this phrase means anything to him.

What he isn’t prepared for, is Murphy lathering Tia’s forehead in wet, exaggeratedly loud kisses as she squeals, attempting to return them at the same speed but falling short, expectedly.

Bellamy-- too busy waxing poetic about Murphy loving what he loves too much for anyone to keep up-- fails to notice the head of soil-tinted straw and lunar eyes dropping to the pillow of bundled up quilt underneath it; to notice Costia taking control of the smooch session and rapid-fire peppering Murphy’s dreamlike expression with little pink kisses. He looks blissful, peach-skin eyelids smoothed closed as he flashes a toothy, kind grin, little shimmering wet spots from Tia’s many sweet kisses gleaming on his rounded cheeks.

What he does not fail to notice, is the little marshmallow hand flattening gently but urgently under his freckled chin, guiding him forward to complete some mystery task. “Moo-smoo- _vitsmoo-_ ” Costia attempts, fair little fingers pressing into the paling bronze of Bellamy’s skin. Okay, he can smooch, he figures, darting forward to press a little bloom of a kiss on her button nose and hoping it’s anything as impressive as Murphy’s smoochies apparently are. She giggles, but then shakes her head seriously.

“No?” he mouths, pointedly keeping his gaze away from Murphy’s resting rose petal face, curled up and flowery and pink and soft and perfect and last time Bellamy checked he was supposed to be kind of realistically ugly so what in the grand floral fuck happened in the five seconds that he wasn’t looking?  
  
She tilts his head towards Murphy’s closed face _. ‘Smoochies for Uncle Murphy, you buffoon. Put me out of my misery, fool.’_

Bellamy flushes. Fine, he can play this game. Fuck a baby and fuck a baby’s demands, he’ll go willingly into the depths. Murphy even kinds of looks kissable right now anyways so he can just--

He pecks the pale boy once on the cheek and then reels back.

That was... fine? It was-- was-- whatever.

A cloudy blue eye pops open like a dewdrop on rose velvet cheeks and Bellamy shrinks, but tries to keep his chin up. It’s-- it’s part of the game. He... it’s fine? It wasn’t weird. That wasn’t a weird thing to do. Bellamy practically sucked on the guy’s fingers yesterday, what’s a little cheek action while a baby’s got a gun to his head?

Murphy’s smile wobbles and his face goes even pinker, if possible. “Tia, you know you’re my best girl, but that one was pretty gross and slobbery, ” he starts, and Bellamy huffs out an indignant noise and turns his head away. “You could try again, though,” Murphy says, still looking at Costia before his eyes flutter closed again, but the edge of his lips quirks towards Bellamy like a thin little arrow.

First he’s got honey bones and then his muscles are turning into chocolate pudding and Bellamy’s nothing but a dissolved sugar cube under sun-hot skin. Costia’s preoccupied with the vanilla-swirl button on Murphy’s tacky button-up, lacing it in and out, in and out. Bellamy swallows his heart in one big watery gulp and swoops in to smash a feathery, dry kiss against Murphy’s softened jawline. The boy’s pearl eyes snap open with a burst of light as he barks out a laugh.

“Hey Cornmaster, didn’t think you’d actually do it!” he crows even as Bellamy digs a sharp heel into Murphy’s shallowly-bared shin underneath the quilts, ears burning.

“Shut up, Murphy!”

Murphy brings a hand up to smooth his wide palm over Costia’s little blueberry head as he turns to give Bellamy an admiring glance, fleeting but pointed and open enough to drip more nectar into the corners of Bellamy’s chocolate shell eyes. God, he’s-- he’s not a bad-looking guy. Gentle, too. Funny... exciting... pretty-- pretty.

“Pretty,” Bellamy mutters involuntarily, and Murphy’s eyes shift to something foggier, darker, as a burst of cherry blooms out from the center of his face.

Murphy sits up. “Someone’s tired,” he murmurs, voice trembling a little, rough like stones have built up along the edges of his throat. “How about we try that crib again?”

Bellamy lies with his shoulder-blades biting into the floor like clipped bird’s wings, listening hollowly to the sound of Murphy’s feet stumbling up the stairs and Tia snoring softly against his shoulder.

He can’t seem to do anything right. He’s getting used to this fact.

His hands stay curled into fists by his sides as he lies under the hot, stifling quilts like they’re a coffin, humiliated and frustrated in every possible way, burning like a candle from the tips of his ears to the ends of his curled toes and bleeding fire-warm wax in his torment.

It’s not until a pair of hands curl into the front of his shirt and lift him off the floor enough to trap him in a bruising kiss that he decides death row won’t miss him, and then forces his mouth to respond.

John Murphy is kissing him. On the mouth. His mouth. John Murphy is kissing Bellamy Blake, the man of honey and chocolate pudding and melted sugar clogging up his purple veins and pouring out of his dirt eyes and making him dead dead dead dead. Bellamy Blake is dead and John Murphy’s trying to jam his tongue down his throat and he’s-- like, mostly okay with it.

Murphy breaks away for a second, too soon and too far and too long, lips glistening and tongue tasting of the grapefruit he had after dinner and also like a bunch of other unidentifiable foreign objects because Murphy eats a lot of bullshit and spews a lot more and the inside of a human body can only taste so good.

“Why didn’t you just fuckin’ say so?” Murphy gasps, and then dives back in without waiting for an answer, swiping his tongue along Bellamy’s strawberry punnet mouth with an urgency that the latter is struggling to respond appropriately to.

Murphy kisses like one would expect from him. Loud, harsh, and excited. Hot, furious, sloppy, a little gross but not enough to become an issue at the forefront of Bellamy’s mind amidst all other sensations.

Sensations like Murphy’s bony, stupid knees at his sides and soft thighs criss-crossing over his hips, encasing him like an eggshell and causing a readable amount of volcanic activity in the polar regions of Bellamy’s gut and also dick.

And it is because a dick exists at the same time in the same place as John Murphy, in all of his candy-faced swollen-lipped glory, panting against Bellamy’s bared throat and tugging Grandma’s heirloom quilt over their heads to blanket them in dark and wet hot American summer and all things disgustingly human and dick-ish, and because Murphy is also a proud cardholder of the Dick Trust, a bit of good ole’ classic family fun is prompted.

This is where, if the story of Bellamy and Murphy were a Broadway musical, the entire theater would go up in fucking flames.

*******

Murphy looks like a sexy skeleton themed arts and crafts project. There’s no better way for Bellamy to describe him, sprawled out in a spiderweb of bones plastered with creamy skin and glued on pink, glittery scar stickers and baby blue buttons for eyes and a little tangle of cinnamon twine for hair.

He’s naked as the day he was born, Murphy keeps doing weird things like pushing him over and making bongo-noises as he drums on Bellamy’s bare ass until the latter is roaring and tears are collecting in his eyes.

When Murphy gets tired of making dick jokes and ogling him, and just slings an arm over his stomach and closes his eyes, Bellamy’s happy.

At least, he thinks he’s happy. He should be, right? He’s got a pretty guy stark nude in the sheets by his side in the house they share. Tomorrow they’ll part ways and drop their beautiful kid off at daycare, they’ll head to their respective advancing careers and rejoin at home that afternoon to--

What will they do?

What, run into each other’s arms and kiss the living daylights out of each other? Fuck unprompted again at four P.M.?

He knows himself, he knows his co-parent, his frienemy, his... whatever this is now. Murphy’ll make a bad joke that stings and Bellamy’ll insult him where it hurts and they’ll probably rip each other to shreds, preferably, or maybe they’ll just eat dinner an hour apart and skip nightly crime-show gambling and go to sleep on opposite ends of the world and then never speak ever to each other ever again.

Bellamy can’t... he can’t deal with that. Not now, now that they’re finally getting along, now that Costia’s happy and they’re doing well for themselves. They’re happy.

He licks his lips as the cold air from the den’s vent coats them in sand and snow, heavy, nervous breaths rolling over the chapped texture like broken waves in a river running red. He smooths a freckled hand over the soft, mothwing gray planes of Murphy’s back, the notched ridge down the middle and the vanilla-blanketed devil horns, the low valley in the small of it. He’ll never have this again, excuse him for taking advantage of the absolute fucking blessing while it’s spread out in front of him.

He swallows. “We can’t do this again,” he says.

Murphy’s sweet, easy breathing hitches.

“I’m not gonna be Miller 2.0,” he blurts out.

Murphy rolls over with murder in his eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [to the tune of the what the FUCK, richard vine]
> 
> bellamy: [tosses frisbee except the frisbee is his intended purpose and the frisbee making a hard right and landing on the highway is what actually came out of his mouth]
> 
> me: what the FUCK, bellamy
> 
> p.s. i know this is not... the best chapter... i panic-wrote it in 2 hours just now bc i realized i finally had time and motivation at the same time and im fckkgugin exhausted ive been awake for like two days straight now so . this chapter is gross im sorry thank u for yr eyeballs


	18. grotesque pandemonium & inevitable annihilation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> umm im back? so fucking sorry for the wait if anyone cares. ill really try to finish this stupid ass story
> 
> chapter featuring public nudity and giving up, my two favorite things
> 
> (title vaguely from the awakening)

  Pants. Oh God, pants?

“Look at me, asshole! I’m talking to you!”

Pants! Pants! Pants pants pants pants pants.

“Oh, you wanna say some shit and then run, Chicken Little?” Murphy sneers, and Bellamy’s soul filters out of his skin fast enough to break the sound barrier when a clammy hand latches around his bare ankle. “You’re a coward, Bellamy!”

He kicks Murphy off like a stray dog snapping at his heels and barrels for the front door, birthday suit flushed from tie to cufflinks and little Bellamy cowering in the night chill in the most undignified of ways. His bare feet slap against the pavement as he runs, runs, runs, and a neighbor’s porch light sparks on, morbidly curious, as Murphy leans out the front door in his own bare naked lady glory and screams, _“Fucking coward!”_ at Bellamy’s retreating unclothed form.

*******

Raven’s eyebrows bubble up slowly to her hairline, before her cheeks blow out and a gasp of hysterical laughter slaps him across the bare ass.

“Just let me in, Raven.”

The mechanic roars, dewdrops budding in the corners of her eyes. “Finn! Finn! Get in here!”

Bellamy knits his brows together indignantly, one hand covering his front jewels and another hand half-shielding his rear to any unsuspecting passerbys. “Fine, you know what? Fucking-” he grumbles, turning to trot back down the porch stairs.

A hand wraps around his elbow and starts tugging him back towards the warmth. She barks out an amused apology, “No, come in, sorry, _aha-”_ and pushes him inside, door snapping closed with a metallic rattle of the screen, an automated locking system of her own design beeping reassuringly behind them.

Finn bumbles down the stairs with a towel around his waist, eyes widening curiously at a very naked, teeth chattering Bellamy Blake the Great attempting to keep his chin up despite his predicament. Finn snickers, and Bellamy finally drops his hands and plunders forwards to tug the bottom of Finn’s towel and leave it draped across his feet. Finn only laughs louder, shameless as always with his wind chimes swinging in the breeze, as Bellamy serves merely to embarrass himself further and blooms red from throat to ears. Raven grumbles “Right in front of my salad,” and leaves Finn crowing as he readjusts his towel and leads poor, confused, bare-assed Bellamy upstairs to borrow some clothes.

“You’re lucky we live down the street,” Finn says, observantly and unnecessarily. Bellamy huffs, arms crossed awkwardly over his chest behind the bathroom door.

“Never thought I’d agree.” Finn only laughs good-naturedly, the disarming sound muffled through a panel of wood.

“The boxers are clean, don’t throw a hissy fit,” he says in lieu of parting words, and Bellamy waits for the sound of descending footsteps before emerging shamefully from the restroom and dressing himself with what Finn’s laid out on the bed, trying as directed to not feel too weird about wearing another man’s underwear. He makes a mental note to thank Finn for picking out his most comfortable clothes, thinking absently that Murphy would’ve given him the ugliest, scratchiest things he owned were he to...

Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Bellamy doesn’t need to think about him. Doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to think about him, or his stupid lips, his nail-bitten fingers, his unnerving smile or his off-putting laugh or his annoying voice or his greasy hair or his- his eyes- which- which he can’t find anything wrong with aside from the fact that they are Murphy’s. Stupid Murphy and all his stupid cool scars and stupid gentle touches and stupid awesome motorcycle and stupid sappy wedding rings and stupid funny one-liners and stupid soft lips and stupid stupid stupid stupid--

So Bellamy doesn’t think about him. He doesn’t need to. Doesn’t want to.

*******

“Bellamy, I love you, but you have to fuck off at some point. It's been two days. You kind of, you know, have a kid. Which you left with John Murphy. Alone.”

Bellamy shrugs, shielding his guilty eyes from her perceptive stare by watching his eggs carefully. He stabs the yellowish yolk and jiggles it around a little with the prongs of his fork, blinking absently. “Murphy can handle it.”

Raven quirks a brow and shovels another forkful of slightly under-cooked breakfast into her mouth, and says through wincing gulps, “And you left him mad. He might punt the kid off a balcony in a-” her voice shreds into a rough Hulk impression, “ _Murphy Angry!_ psycho fit. You know how he gets-”

Bellamy slams his fork down. Murphy loves Costia, loves her more than himself, more than anything. Raven doesn’t fucking know him. Not like Bellamy does. “I _said_ he can handle it.” Raven only shrugs, unaffected by his outburst.

“He shouldn’t have to, Pops.”

She clears her plate and wedges it into a space in the dishwasher, tugs on her red jacket from the back of the chair, and grabs her bike keys off the counter, twirling them around her finger. Bellamy watches her with wary eyes as she opens the front door, looks at him seriously, and then shrugs again. “You’re a coward, Bellamy.”

The yolk bursts, seeps into the white and becomes an unrecognizable splatter, a rejected Pollock piece, Bellamy’s face twisting into an accompanying Picasso work in a gallery of indignant surprise and acquiescent shame.

“Love you,” she reminds him, slamming the door closed behind her. The locking system chirps happily, beep, beep, beep. He wishes Murphy would bust the system and knock the door down and drag him back to their house by his hair. He wishes that the door would never let anyone back inside, and he would live here alone forever, with no one to touch and ruin.

*******

“Murphy, so glad you made it!” Caspian says cheerily, straightening the chef hat sitting atop his bloom of scraggly orange hair. Murphy side-eyes him suspiciously, tying on his apron. “We missed you yesterday, didn't we, team?"

Murphy squints his eyes to narrow slits, watching as the kitchen grows still and quiet in some kind of anticipation, everyone watching the exchange like hawks. “What are you on and where can I get some?”

Caspian only smiles. “Got the Mt. Everest of dishes waiting for you, get to work!” he says pleasantly, and Murphy frowns.

“I don’t do dishes.”

Caspian grins again, slapping Murphy on the back, who reacts instinctively by coiling up like a rattlesnake and brutally shoving Caspian away, knocking the man into a counter with a harsh clatter and chime of pots and pans. Caspian’s sunny air shifts to something dangerous and predatory, he glowers.

“Do you assault all of your superiors, or am I just special?” he sneers, and Murphy’s mouth goes dry.

“You...?”

Caspian laughs, and Murphy catches a glimpse of Mbege through the server window, looking downtrodden and bitter, sees Miller gazing at him apologetically from the stove. “Show some respect for your new chef, Johnny boy.”

His heart quiets. Murphy, for the first time in his life, is left speechless.

Caspian adores this, and tosses a dishrag into Murphy’s chest, who catches it wordlessly and clutches it against his stomach, eyelids flickering dazedly. “What was it that you said to me during your trial-run? Oh, right,” he muses, tapping his chin. “Watch your back.”

He’s going to set the whole fucking restaurant on fire.

He’s going to kill Caspian. He’s going to kill Jaha.

He’s going to kill them all.

*******

The house is quiet when he enters, Costia resting somberly in his arms before he plants her in her playpen and towers over her with empty, foggy eyes. They stay there for a moment, gazes locked, waiting.

Bellamy will shuffle in at any moment to say hello, to ask how their respective days went and listen to two different sets of incoherent babbling, to kiss Costia’s head and toss an arm over Murphy’s shoulders to drag him into the living room and show him a cool jacket that a customer brought in, or a weird documentary that he just found on Netflix. Bellamy will, at any moment, realize that Murphy is quieter than usual, that his shoulders are hunched, and he’ll turn to him with an open face and reassure him that it’s just a kitchen, it’s just a rejection, it’s just an insult, it’s just a nightmare, it’s just something, something that Murphy shouldn’t pay any mind to, that those fuckers don’t know him, that dreams aren’t real, that it wasn’t his fault, that he’s good at his job, that anyone would be lucky to have him. Whatever it was, whatever something that he shouldn’t pay any mind to, Bellamy would pay mind to. Bellamy notices. Bellamy cares.

Bellamy cared.

Murphy tries to pay no mind to the quiet that stays. Tries to pay no mind to the likelihood that Bellamy Blake will never come back to take care of the two of them as long as Murphy's there, will become another notch in the belt that ultimately hangs him.

He can't do this alone. 

Costia reaches out a chubby hand for him, some kind of naive display of trust. Murphy doesn't take it.

 

He can't do this alone.

 

*******

 

_**"Hi, Bellamy. It's Murphy. You, duh, you probably know that, contact names- um. I'm going away. Uh, Costia's with Harper and Monroe, you should probably go pick her up before Wednesday night. I recorded the Cold Case Files episode but I know we always- you always like to watch them in "real time" or whatever. They're reruns from 2004 but, your words not mine. I'm going to Arizona. Warm weather and all. Should be nice. I didn't get the promotion, turns out, got demoted actually, and I can't-- I can't work there anymore. There's some burger-shake joint hiring where I'm headed and I make a mean milkshake, you've had one before, right? They're pretty good. So- doesn't matter, what am I talking about? Right, the house is all yours. The bus should get here in about half an hour. I really have to piss, uh- let me know when you get Tia... I'm... I'm sorry, Bell. Ah, shit. I'm not cut out for this. You pretty much had it on your own since the beginning, I'm just kind of, aha, I'm not much help, am I? Anyway, sorry for getting in the way. Might as well hightail it out of there while she can still forget I exist.** _ _**I'll send you guys cash when I start making it. Gonna be kinda technically homeless for a while, so if I don't pick up my phone either it or I died. I don't know if we need to, like, get some kind of legal co-parent divorce to get you tax breaks or some shit but I'll do that. If you want. I'm talking too much. Just, take care of her. She- she really loves you. And I lo- and I'm sorry. I, uh, shit. It's been fun, Bell. Call me when you pick her up. You left your wallet on the table and I took a hundy for the trip, by the way. IOU. Bye."** _

 

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> murphy u dumb impulsive bitch
> 
> i hate this chapter sorry it sucked im really. struggling with this story in case u hadnt noticed by the like four month hiatus to only deliver a short ass terrible chapter which took way too long and if ur not reading anymore u know what good for u. love urself
> 
> if u still liked it then holy shit thanks!!! three more chappies 2 go!


	19. only from exile can we come home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh God!

   She pleads silently with him, four fingers in her mouth and another five reaching out to him, reaching past him, reaching for the empty bedroom doorway with the pink wide-eyed does by the light switch. He pushes her down gently, lowering her onto her rear behind the crib’s wooden bars. She lets out a soft noise of disappointment, her five-expression face shifting from something worrisome and confused to something that can only be described as sad.

“I know, I know,” Bellamy says, grip tightening on her shoulder. She presses her cheek to his hand and holds onto a wiry strand of arm-hair to keep him there. A watery smile finds his lips, and she looks at him with begging eyes again, knowing it’s working, she’s wearing him down. “Okay. Fine.”

She makes a pleased humming noise as he lifts her out of the crib, satisfied with her con-artist work. He shuffles in socked feet to the bedroom and makes a tiny frame of pillows to plop her into and keep her from rolling like a bowling ball onto the floor while they sleep. If they sleep.

They don’t sleep so well anymore.

He crawls under the covers with his chin atop his hands, watching her over the pillow barrier between them as she presses her fingers into her tired eyes and feels for the squish of her own eyeball. He didn’t know babies could get bags under their eyes.

They don’t sleep so well anymore. You might not know this, but broken hearts crack apart very loudly, and do so for long periods of time. It’s hard to find silence enough to rest between the crumbling noises in the hours during which they expect to hear Murphy’s snores.

Thirty minutes pass of a tossing and turning duet, before Bellamy realizes, belatedly and with the black fist of fear tightening around his chest, that this is going to be one of _those_ nights. He rolls over and reaches out to his phone on the bedside table, breaths coming uneven, rapid and then nonexistent, stuttering out of his mouth as Tia sits up in anticipation, mouth drooling and eyes full of excitement like a Pavlov’s dog for the sound of the dial tone.

“Hey.”

_“Shit. Again?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Put her on.”_

He puts the phone on speaker and places it in Tia’s hands, who’s already grinning curiously at the device. He guides her hands away from the enticingly red End Call button as she taps inquisitively at the screen, like they haven’t had to do this twice a week for nearly a month now.

_“Hey, best girl.”_

Her eyes widen and she lets out a soft squeal, wrapping both hands clumsily around the phone and holding it close to her ear like she’s seen her uncles do a thousand times before, ever an intelligent little parakeet. Murphy says something unintelligible beneath Tia’s chirping, hysterical laughter. Sometimes these days he forgets the sound.

_“I need you to get some sleep, kid. Alright? Get some sleep for Uncle Bellamy.”_

Bellamy’s hands tighten around the sheets. His eyes burn. Everything burns. It will leave sores in the morning that have him limping around all day or writhing under the covers; futile, hot tears slipping past his eyes as Octavia’s ragged little voice in the phone speaker promises the shop can do without him for one more day. (He knows that it can't. He is a selfish bastard.)

Tia makes no words of confirmation and does not appease this radio-static carbon copy of her real Uncle Murphy or his empty demands, but she lies flat on her back with the phone on her chest and smiles at the ceiling, popping a pinkie finger into her mouth contentedly. Murphy sighs, a crackling gust of wind in the speaker.

_“Do you remember when you pulled all the Hot Wheels cars apart at daycare? And they wrote on your daily report that you were showing destructive tendencies, and while Uncle Bellamy apologized and said he would buy a new pack for the class as soon as he could and all this other dorky shit, I thought it was the weirdest thing, you know-- because I used to pull apart Hot Wheels cars, but it was hard. It takes brute strength or superbaby intelligence to get those wheels off, and you’ve met me, so you know which one I employed. But your little toothpick arms couldn’t have done that. So I went over to check the bin on the toy shelf, and there was this tupperware container full of tiny mustangs that were all pretty much in one piece. Judging by the current emotional turmoil of your glorified babysitter I figured they hadn’t been able to put them back together. And you were sitting there on the play mat, looking at me like I was all up in your business, and I found a car with a wheel missing and tossed it at you. I sat there and watched you unscrew a second wheel, and then switch them, and put them both right back on, which is no joke for someone at the age where they should have the motor skill capabilities of an amoeba, and I remember standing there, looking at you, thinking ‘Shit, this kid is going to build a space station, isn’t she? This kid is going to dissect the world and send us to fucking Mars.’”_

 

***

 

Bellamy blinks, presses his fingers into his eyes and listens for the squish, and then lies still. He hears Tia, breathing softly and evenly, breathing the way a body at rest breathes.

They slept. Dreamless and steady, without aches in their necks, their spines; they slept.

Bellamy reaches for the phone tucked between Tia’s belly and a pillow.

**Murph**  
**December 19th, 2016**  
**11:32 PM Outgoing Call 2 hours 14 minutes**

 

***

 

 **bell**  
**7:24 AM**  
Thanks. Sorry  
_**Read**_

 **Murph**  
**7:30 AM**  
no problm

 

***

 

“Mr. Murphy, do you have a minute?”

_No, stupid bitch, I’m trying to caramelize these stupid onions in this shitty pan for your grotesque burgers._

He shovels through the onion slices with his spatula one last time, and turns the burner on low, irritably, flashing his manager a smile that might have been more artificial than their meat.

Murphy wipes his greasy hands on his apron, stark white, no sharpie penises drawn by Mbege on the pocket, no stains or spills or rips or the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Professional and health-inspector-proof, at Alie’s they’re all outward appearance and glittering generalities.

Murphy fucking hates Arizona.

“What’s up?”

She smiles in that creepy science-fiction way of hers, hands clasped in front of her. “You’ve been a great addition to this kitchen, John. We really appreciate all the refreshing new takes you’ve brought to the table-- literally!”

His lip curls involuntarily. “If you’re gonna fire me then just get it over with.”

She laughs the way an alien pretending to be a human might laugh, startlingly boisterous and stale, mouth wideness and head thrown-backedness pre-programmed. “No, John. You’ve been recommended to be sous-chef.”

His brows tighten, bewildered creases forming in his forehead deep as gills. “I’ve only been here three weeks, why would she...” he trails off as he casts a wary glance over his shoulder, eyes tight when he finds another pair flickering towards him fleetingly, the head chef’s scarred face twisted in a false expression of focus on the plate under her hands.

“Because you have great ideas and true skill. I think you could really revolutionize our little eatery,” she explains while his head is turned, and Murphy wants to swing at something. One whack-job manager after another. “Ontari and I can’t think of anyone better suited to take Roan’s place.”

Caspian’s stupid fucking laugh echoes in the back of his head while he chews the inside of his cheek, a sugarplum dream of Bellamy’s lips moving around the words _“You’re good at what you do, Murphy.”_

He clenches his jaw.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for it. But thanks.”

Alie cocks her head in an unusually dispirited way, but her chin stays royally high-tilted. “Think about it, will you? We’d love to have you in the higher ranks of our team.”

Murphy lets his own disbelief squeeze an acrid puff of laughter from his mouth, and his chipper manager’s formal frown deepens at the lazy shake of his head. “I’m just trying to survive, paycheck to paycheck, you know? I’m really not interested in being a part of whatever cult shit you guys having going on here.”

Alie’s lips thin in a displeased way, and Ontari stops wiping down her workspace for a moment to slap her towel against the counter in an irate way, stomping over to yank Murphy towards her by the collar of his bright crimson uniform shirt.

“You should be grateful we let you stick around at all with an attitude like that,” she sneers, suddenly not looking too keen on having him as her sous-chef. Something dangerous sits in the sharp line of her lips, her eyes glint like blades. Murphy isn’t scared of her. (His heart pounds.) He isn’t scared of anyone, or anything.

Alie slips away with a whistling tune humming up and out of her chest, feigning obliviousness as she floats on to barrage the other cooks, pretending pointedly not to see the fist tangled in Murphy’s collar. “Where do you go when you clock out, Murphy? Hm?” she begins her fusillade of bitter, cold jabs, nothing like Bellamy’s fiery digs and subsequent poorly-stifled laughter or softening eyes--

No.

Ontari rattles him and brings him back to the land of the living, with an oncoming migraine as a party favor. “What are you running from?” she implores as she searches his face, pushing, pressing, digging her fingers into the seams and wedging through. His teeth click with a worrying crunch as he clenches his jaw tight and avoids her stare, looking over the top of her head at a nick in the white brick wall of the kitchen. “Oh, struck a nerve, did I?” she inquires. “Where are your pressure points, Murphy?” She prods between his ribs with a finger to complete the effect and he can't help but arch away from the feeling. “No no no, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Served something raw and got blacklisted? No, no. It’s scarier than that, isn’t it? Someone died? No, you’re used to that, it’s all over your palm lines,” she hums, lifting one of his hands to her eyes and clucking her tongue when he curls his fist and yanks his arm away. “Divorcee? Crazy ex-girlfriend,” she says, quieter, analyzing any twitch, any disturbance in his cold expression. “Crazy ex-boyfriend?” His throat rolls. Her eyes flicker triumphantly, a light bulb flickering on above her head, an expression of _“Aha!”_ alight on her distorted face.

Murphy says nothing.

“Tell me about him; tell me what’s so _great_ about this mystery man that he’s keeping you from furthering your own career,” she insists. He tilts his chin higher, willing himself not to make a scene, but all he wants is her hands off of him, off of his clothes. He wants everyone to stop staring, to stop listening. He wants out.

Murphy fucking hates Arizona.

Ontari leans into him, eyes fluttering rakishly. “Shy? That’s a shame.”

He snarls, he can’t help it. He forgot to pack his ‘Beware of Dog’ sign. “Edging on a lawsuit. Hands off,” he warns shortly, pushing her away by the shoulders in a fiery moment of daring defiance and an overwhelming desire to have normal workplace interactions.

She pushes back at his chest, face turning tomato-ish and dangerous for a flicker of a second before she schools herself back into a calm and calculated facade and regains her devilish but almost regal poise. “Don’t fight with me, Murphy. I like you. I want you to be my sous-chef!” she says cheerily and immaturely, as if she hadn’t just taken a shovel to his soul and dug in, left cold blanketed over his chest and storm clouds in his head.

“No means no. Learn it, live it, love it, bitch.”

Her eyes flash like alarms.

Mistakes were made.

 

***

 

“Hey.”

The man looks exhausted, eyes dark pits of dried magma around the cerulean gemstones nestled in his face. Tia shifts uncomfortably on Bellamy’s knees, and he hoists her higher onto his lap, her hands clasped excitedly together under her chin becoming visible in the camera’s eye. Murphy beams.

_“Hey girl.”_

Tia swoons, head lolling back with a hysterical smile on her lips before she aims her gaze at the screen again, and Murphy gives her a little pixelated wave that makes Bellamy’s heart do a funny flip in his chest, just like it used to. Just like it always has.

“Bah,” she says seriously. _‘Where are you, traitor?’_

Murphy sighs, tugging at the collar of some torn-up vintage rock band shirt that Bellamy knows to be very soft. ... Why does he know that?

 _“Yeah,”_ he agrees, flopping back against the wall, before remembering it’s a wall and not Bellamy’s desk chair, and winces as his shoulder-blades stub against the drywall.

Bellamy grimaces. “Do you still not have any furniture? Should I send money-?”

The brunet roars, _“NO!”_

Tia flinches, nervously popping two of her fingers into her cheek to occupy herself and calm down, watching the screen warily. Bellamy only sighs, resigned, and leans back in the chair. He looks pointedly out of the dusk-painted window of Tia’s bedroom from his seat in the rocking chair, and the laptop positioned on the changing table next to the two of them buzzes irritably. _“Sorry. I just... No. You need it more. For Tia. I’m fine.”_

Bellamy turns to lift a brow at Murphy’s living situation and state of physical disarray and misery. “You’re not.”

_“Long day at work.”_

“Last day at work?” Bellamy questions, just barely managing to not phrase it as a statement.

Murphy barks out a strange, chagrined laugh. _“You know me.”_

“I do,” Bellamy says seriously, eyes floating away from the screen again. He hasn’t felt like entertaining Murphy’s attempts at banter since he left. They only Skype on Friday nights for Tia’s sake, so she can see her (favorite) uncle and sleep soundly through the weekend, if they’re lucky.

_“They said, and I quote, “Murphy, you’re just too good of a cook. It makes our other employees feel inadequate and affects their subpar-by-comparison performance, so we’ll have to let you go.”’_

Bellamy blinks lazily, unimpressed. “And you said...?” he prompts, waving an airy hand.

 _“I said, “For the good of humanity, of course. I’d be humbled to spare this meager restaurant from its inevitable destruction under the stifling weight of my talent.””_   He sits back against the wall again, crossing his arms in a satisfied, prideful way, looking every bit like a snotty child.

Bellamy lets loose a little snort which he isn’t able to reign in in time, and Murphy perks up at the sound, watching Bellamy carefully, eyes darting for an olive branch that Bellamy didn’t intend on offering.

 _“I- I got fired,”_ he admits, leaning closer to the monitor.

Bellamy is wildly unsurprised. “Why?”

Murphy swallows, looking sheepish. _“Chef was all up in my face about my villain origin story.”_

Bellamy frowned. “And what would that be?” he asks, knowing very well the answer might be any number of the tragedies Murphy’s faced and ultimately survived, but the answer the other man gives was not on Bellamy’s bulleted list.

_“You.”_

Bellamy balks. Tia senses a change in the mood and peers curiously at the screen, reaching out to Murphy who absently holds up a hand for her to pretend to touch as he watches Bellamy intensely, a blush high on his cheeks, a fact evident even through the 420p quality capture.

_“Say something.”_

Bellamy swallows, hard. "What the hell do you want me to say?"

Murphy leans back, mute, and tilts his head towards the ceiling, eyes screwed shut in humiliation, maybe sadness.

Sadness was a strange, terrible thing. It was a thing Bellamy had not felt often since the cyclone of John Murphy spun in and warped Bellamy into his swirl, but suddenly he was drowning in it. The ride of a whirlpool is all fun and games until you go under.

Some would say that sounds like love.

Bellamy would say that sounds like inconvenient bullshit.

A shrill whine tears out of little Costia as she squirms closer to the screen, trying to get Murphy’s observant eyes on her. She pats the keyboard, huffs several times, makes a series of sheep noises. She does everything she can think of that doesn’t involve screaming and crying, and Bellamy guesses it’s because she’s exhausted, if her drooping eyes and wavering smile are any indication.

But she manages.

“Duh- dah- dada!”

Bellamy pales. He feels sick.

Murphy freezes his swaying, head still tilted towards the ceiling. He stays so stone-still one would think the video relay had gotten stuck-- an animal of prey caught under a hunter’s eye, at a standstill where one doesn’t dare to breathe.

Tia seems pleased with herself, however, the new reaction of her caretakers signifying the correct pronunciation of her first real word, and continues to broadside Murphy’s upturned chin and scrunched face with pleading lilts of “Dada! Dada! _Dada!”_

A groan tinged in nausea rips out of Bellamy. “Stop,” he orders, but she continues to chant the title, she won’t stop, Murphy isn’t breathing-- the screen goes dark.

She presses her fingers against the black-out and makes an inquisitive noise, blinking, sniffling, confused and hurt by the sudden absence, by the freckled hands tightening and shaking around her waist.

Bellamy puts her to bed, and hesitates before he kisses her head, a look of desperation and crushing sadness scrolling across his face for a short moment distinguishable even by Costia's poor, infantile perception-skills. She falls onto her back, watching the mobile tinkle soothingly overhead, one of Uncle Murphy's paper UFOs tied to it. When it becomes evident that she's too unsatisfied and unsettled to sleep, she cries.

Costia has learned her first bad word.

 

***

 

Murphy can see his breath in the dark. White clouds of hot air. He laughs deliriously, watches the way his hysteria manifests itself into a shock of fog, something more visible and real than a manic smile, even.

 

A plane hisses across the sky.

 

Murphy walks faster.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> where is he GOING unhgh????
> 
> p.s. costia learned the word dada from murphy trying to get her to call bellamy it to freak him out but she didnt quite ever catch on. so. he never thought his own weapon would be used against him 
> 
> (thank u for READING still, i know this chapter felt cold and impersonal and i dont like it either but thats okay, love you, wow wow wow)


	20. newborn creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "she felt like some newborn creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it has never known"  
> the awakening; kate chopin

Alie unlocks the register with the key in the pocket of her apron left hanging on her office door, a golden twinkle tucked deep in crimson. The register drawer coughs up a puff of dust, barren of the day’s money.

  
A plane hisses across the sky.

  
***

  
The doorbell tinkles abruptly and rustles a $1 Coca-cola poster, and Murphy’s sunken eyes flicker to the doorway where a man with the hood of a parka tucked over his curls stares at his feet as he scuffs the snow off his boots.

  
“Bell-” his voice cracks like thunder and falls.

  
The man looks up to sweep the store, and then wanders over to inspect a box of throat lozenges. His eyes are brown, his skin is dull.

  
The boulder in Murphy’s stomach dissolves, but the stones still sit heavily.

  
He runs the sides of his fingers along the smooth paper in his pocket, a twenty with distressed cotton edges.

The cashier flips through a dirty gossip magazine, a spit bubble forming on their lips.

Murphy tucks another packet of something sweet into his pocket. His stomach grumbles passive-aggressively. He plucks up a box of crackers and expects to open it once the door has closed behind him, but finds himself tearing the plastic and stuffing half of the squares into his mouth, jagged edges pinching his gums and crumbs sticking to his lips. He saunters out, chewing loudly in the mostly empty store. A hesitant voice rises up as the convenience store door swings shut behind him, “Hey! Hey, he’s- he’s stealing!”

  
Murphy turns the corner at the edge of the building and sits on the curb-- watches the cashier wander out and look around for him aimlessly for too short a moment before heading back inside-- inhales a few more crackers.

  
The doorbell chimes sweetly, unassumingly.

  
Murphy throws the hood of his jacket over his eyes. His sneakers scratch against the pavement too loudly, scuff over loose rocks of concrete and forgotten nails. His knuckles crack against an unfamiliar brow bone, the curled stretch of his fingers finding anchor in the hollow of not-Bellamy’s eye. The man in the parka with the brown eyes and the dull skin cries out, drops his cough drops and spills the little strawberry tablets across the ground. Murphy _hates_ the way this guy looks.

  
“Sorry,” he says, and puts his box of crackers on the ground next to the cough drops. “The honey ones-- they're better. My friend told me so,” he says of the cough drops, darting forward to jab the guy between his ribs and revel in the breathless cough that resounds. The man in the parka with the brown eyes and the dull skin throws a fist out, curled loose and swinging too far right like a thick vine searching blindly for prey. Murphy ducks away from a punch after the first one clips his cheek, as the man in the parka with the brown eyes and the dull skin swings and swings and swings, and presses a palm to his battered eye socket. There is ice outside of the store. He will be okay.

  
“So sorry,” he says again, and pulls his hood down further over his eyes as he walks out to the road and continues alongside it, cradling his fist and basking in the silence of his stomach.

Murphy hated the way that guy looked.

 

*******

 

He moves like he’s part of a herd, walking alongside cars as the vehicles flash past him in silver, red and blue blazes of color and growling transmissions. He stops at red lights even if the street is empty, proceeds only as his herd proceeds. It’s easier than thinking about being left behind, thinking about the cars containing people who laugh and sing and sign cards covered in chrysanthemums and holly with shaky pens, on their seventy miles per hour way to see their friends and families on Christmas Eve.

At the fifteenth stoplight he sits on the icy rocks by a man with age-spotted hands holding a blank cardboard sign.

“You could cover more ground if you moved to a new stoplight every once in a while, you know.”

The old man smiles. Murphy does not smile back, though his face is not unkind. He tugs his jacket’s hood up, slumps down to the cold ground and tucks his arms behind his head, stares up at the white sky, closes his eyes against the flurries coming down.

“This red light lasts the longest. I counted.”

Murphy doubts the truth of the man’s calculations. He laughs regardless, or due to it.

“And I would only to get to thank folks once if I moved around so much.”

Murphy closes his eyes, and thinks the sounds of traffic might lull him to sleep. “Like who?” he murmurs. “Get a lot of regulars?” It’s sardonic and tastes bitter, but the nameless face by his side doesn’t seem put off by this.

The man intertwines his hands and looks across the street thoughtfully. “Like you.”

“I never did anything for you,” Murphy disagrees, murmuring. “That was all Bellamy.”

The man seems at a loss for words, or doesn’t think it worth his time to debate Murphy. He sits against the warmth-radiating power box quietly, closing his eyes in a mirror image of the young man in the snow.

“How is your friend? He was a real gentleman.”

Murphy’s smoothed-over eyes tighten, a twitch travels his features and twists them between its hand.

“He’s been better.”

The man stays silent, and then, of course, it all spills out.

“He doesn’t want me around, you know, I got a little too comfortable. And when I fucked off it was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. It was like everything was the way it used to be.”

The man frowns, rubbing his arms. He doesn't have much in the way of a coat, just some thin hoodie, he's got to be freezing. “The way it used to be?” he parakeets questioningly.

Murphy sighs, pressing his palms into his eyes. “Alone.”

A thick moment of stifling silence runs over them like a heatwave. Murphy finds the will to move and rifles around in the pocket of his coat, pulls out a Pixie Stix and passes it to the homeless man between two fingers like a bummed smoke. The man opens it with an amused smile, and shakes the sugar directly into his mouth, the way Bellamy thinks it’s to be done. His heart aches in his chest, burns and and itches like an infected sore.

The old man swallows, and then shrugs, squinting down the now-wet packet of sugar. “Then what are you doing here?"

*******

 

Tia hums inquisitively at the box, tangling her fingers in the ribbon. Bellamy undoes the bow slowly. “Like this,” he directs, guiding her fingers to the other end of the ribbon. She tugs hard, and the wrapping paper dotted with little snowflakes crinkles and tears, the ribbon snaps gracelessly and leaves Tia giggling, trying to tear it apart between her tooth-sprouting gums like a wolf pup.

“It’s not much,” Bellamy explains in the way of conversation, unwrapping the rest of the present for her. “You’ll get the rest tomorrow.”

She blinks curiously at him. “From Santa, I mean,” he adds quickly, and her face shows no signs of relief or reassurance, but she slaps her hands against the half-opened gift impatiently.

“I just don’t like waiting. My mom always let me and Octavia open one gift on Christmas Eve, and the rest had to wait until the morning. She didn’t mind, but that drove me crazy.”

“Buh,” Costia says. _‘And you’re not still?’_

He shrugs, resting his chin on a hand as she tugs the rest of the wrapping paper off and inspects the package of toys, unseeing. She bangs the cardboard backing on the floor until Bellamy decides to intervene, tearing the pack open and dumping the contents on the floor in front of her.

Costia recognizes the gift, squeals in delight, and digs in.

Bellamy’s wound stops aching for a moment, as the light in her eyes combs through his skin like warm, clean water.

He allows her to clamber into his lap and fiddle with her presents, and he watches the snow come down unforgivingly outside. The endless white rain and the bundle of warm against his chest, the soft gleam of lights on the Christmas tree he decorated alone, it all starts to hush in his ears, guide his eyes closed...

A soft rapping on the door.

He shuffles Tia off of him and onto the couch. He stands.

The handle is cold, the air is cold.

 

Murphy is beautiful.

  
He is beautiful, standing there. He shivers, his hand frozen in the air, beads of white clinging to his eyelashes, his hair. His lip shakes, his cheeks are ruddy and his nose shines.

  
“I come bearing gifts,” he says. He shoves a packet of Pixie Stix into Bellamy’s chest, and a twenty dollar bill. “I’ll get you the rest of it. Sometime.”

Bellamy’s face moves before his brain can pick its jaw up and give the command. He traps Murphy’s mouth under his lips and kisses, slow and agonizing and soft. Snowflakes melt on Murphy’s blue face as his cheeks heat up, and the warm water runs along Bellamy’s skin as he tilts his head and tugs Murphy in, wraps him up, licks his lips and kisses until he can’t breathe.

“Where’s your coat?” he murmurs against Murphy’s lips.

“It’s okay,” Murphy whispers.

“Where is it?” Bellamy asks more forcefully, searching his eyes. Tears gather and fall down Murphy’s cheeks like more melted snow, tiny silver rivulets.

“It’s okay,” he says again, nodding his head against Bellamy’s forehead.

Yeah, Bellamy thinks. It’s okay. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeats, whispering, shoving Murphy’s face into the crook of his neck and wrapping his coat around the man’s shivering form. He wants him impossibly closer, warmer. It’s okay.

“Can I come in?” Murphy asks finally, voice muffled, dropping the candy between them, at their feet. Bellamy nods against his head, brushing Murphy’s hair up the wrong way against his cheek, and begins to shuffle backwards as Murphy waddles inside still wrapped in Bellamy's coat and clinging to him, and they crack up laughing as they stumble together like ducks.

Bellamy releases him, pushes him up against the door and kisses the dipped place where tears always gather under Murphy’s lips. The brunet preens, eyes crinkling as he tilts his head back and bathes in it.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Bellamy hisses against his skin, tears sparking in his eyes at last.

Murphy just smiles up at the ceiling. “It’s okay.” And then, “I fucking hate Arizona.”

“I fucking hate _you,_ ” Bellamy retaliates, running his hands down Murphy’s sides, the man's clothes soaked through with snow and freezing to the touch.

“I fucking hate you, too,” Murphy adds, shoving a little at Bellamy’s shoulder. “You started it.”

Bellamy has the right of mind to look guilty for a second. “I was nervous.”

Murphy scrunches his face up. “What, was it your first time?” he teases, scowling. Bellamy shakes his head, coming to rest in the space between Murphy’s shoulder and jaw.

“No, I’ve been nervous before.”

Murphy’s taken-aback, alarmed laughter draws a cry from the den. They tear away from each other reluctantly, but Bellamy steels his heart and takes Murphy’s hand in his as they move towards the sound-- and somehow it is the most intimate thing he has ever done.

Murphy, of all people in the world, adjusts the way their fingers intertwine, brings Bellamy’s hand to his lips for a prince-like kiss, and at the last moment, pretends to gnaw on his fist. Bellamy sighs.

“We’re having sex later.”

“Oh, that did it for you? Vore?”

Bellamy shoves him hard, and Murphy falls against the couch, laughing. Falls right next to bubble-eyes and frozen hands.

Costia screams and crawls all over him, even licks his face like a dog reuniting with its owner returned from war. Murphy wraps the child in his arms and doesn’t let go even as she squirms to further inspect him, cries and cries and cries into her not-quite-hair and Bellamy isn’t sure how he has anything left to give. He doesn’t have the heart to make fun of him, not when Murphy looks at her like that, with shiny cheeks and that knife-smile pulled hard across his face like a silver crescent moon.

Bellamy's eyes move to the Hot Wheels cars on the couch, pulled apart. He looks at the wheel in Costia’s tiny, shaking fist as she curls up against Murphy like a little kudzu vine that intends on growing and growing and never letting go.

“Hey,” Bellamy hears himself saying.

Murphy looks up at him with big eyes and the crumbs of a laugh clinging to his lips.

“I think I probably love you.”

Murphy blinks.

“Yeah. I- same.”

“Oh," Bellamy says. "That’s good.”

Murphy scrubs his eyes. “Just... get over here, you big dumb idiot,” he demands, and tugs a slow-approaching Bellamy onto the couch by his arm, slots his head under Bellamy’s in a terrifyingly domestic, romantic way. Tia stretches across their laps and curls up like a kitten, warm and sleepy. Bellamy’s heart lurches, his wound soothes itself into a scar.

They stare up at the photo over the mantle as snow flutters against the windows in a whisper, like a thousand little birds, and the lights embracing the tree twinkle like fireflies in a forest.

“I fucking hate that picture,” Murphy whispers.

Bellamy closes his eyes. “You can stop trying so hard, you know. Look at yourself.”

Murphy glances from the window, to the tree, to the wrapping paper on the floor. The photo, his hand tangled in another, the tiny toes curled up atop his thighs. He sighs, and his eyes close of their own accord. He thinks Bellamy may already be asleep.

This is not alone. This is safe. This is a field where vulnerable things bloom. This is... this is a home.

“Yeah,” Murphy says. “Okay."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love love, bro. merry assorted winter holidays yall <3
> 
> epilogue/last last chapter sometime soon!
> 
> [murphy robbed alie's restaurant to buy a plane ticket back home and i guess out of spite because he didnt need that much money and my headcanon for my own fic is that he dumped the leftovers off at an arizonan orphanage or some shit because angsty helpful murphy. and then he beat up a guy at a convenience store after stealing pixie stix for bellamy because the guy looked too much like bellamy but wasn't as cool as bellamy and murphy was having a meltdown. in case that wasn't clear. realistically he should have been arrested after all of this but this is an alternative universe where thieves and maniacs wander home in the snow and make out with the loves of their lives because i am god here and i said so]


	21. we built a life in this house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >> https://youtu.be/9jK-NcRmVcw?t=1m57s <<

 

When Murphy decides he's going to be a father, he is twelve years-old.

There's a fly buzzing circles around a rustic bin stacked high with tomatoes, and his father coughs twice into the sharp crook of his elbow. The fluorescents flicker here and there, a dull yellow blink overhead like a smaller sun behind moving fog. He closes his eyes and lets the scent of debatably fresh fruit invade his senses, lets the false sun whisper in and out of existence behind his paper-thin eyelids. The chilled air circulating from the wet rack of vegetables along the surrounding walls raises goosebumps on his skin, makes the scratches on his knees and his elbows from a few nasty tumbles down the driveway tingle.

Someone leans against him and disturbs the quiet orchard manifesting in John's mind, young and alive with color. John's eyes flutter open and his father is there, nudging his shoulder and sinking his teeth into a tomato. He holds another out for John, shamelessly.

John takes a bite out of the tomato. When he checks over both his shoulders and finds nothing to be alarmed by, he sends the man towering high above him a mischievous grin, a wicked mouthful of red teeth. His father laughs aloud, a hearty, exuberant display of freedom and an unapologetic joy for life that will ring between poor John's ears forever.

"Now I ain't teaching my son to be a grifter. We'll pay for 'em at the register," he says between swallows, swinging an empty shopping basket around on his wrist as he further peruses the produce. John pays no mind to talk of money, only darts ahead to inspect the cakes on display at the in-store bakery's counter.

There's one in particular that he likes today, one with blue icing and orange balloons, and a generic, nameless "Happy Birthday" swirled elegantly in white. It's very impersonal, a little bland, but there's a cartoon tiger in the bottom right corner and John, well-- John loves tigers this year.

At the register, they pay for bread, eggs, milk, zero tomatoes, and one birthday cake. "Mom said to get bananas," John reminds his father, as he sorts the last of his loose change around in his palm and passes it over to a sighing cashier apologetically. Money's tight this year. And every other year.

His father shrugs. "Your mom could do with a treat too."

In the parking lot, they hold hands, even if John insists he's too old and yanks, yanks, yanks, until his father is laughing loud enough to set off car alarms and his hand is sweaty from the warm, relentless grip. His father coughs into the open air when he finishes laughing, and they both watch it swirl away. John sees the exhaustion under his fathers smiling, crow-footed eyes, the lesions peeking out from long sleeves and high necks meant to conceal. It's always been this way. He stops asking if his father is okay. He is. He always is.

John stops struggling when the cake balanced on his other hand wobbles precariously. He eyes it with affectionate suspicion, and then looks forward. "Is it my birthday?" he asks.

"Nah," his father answers.

They pop the trunk of the sputtering family lemon and unwrap plastic forks hoarded in the glovebox from fast food to-go meals. They sit on the back of the car and watch vehicles in every color fly past the supermarket lot; three blue and four red. John's winning again. "Red's a more common color," his father says, holding his fork up in protest.

John shrugs, chewing, and swallows before speaking. "If you wanted red, you should've picked red."

Alex laughs and laughs and laughs, like his kid is the funniest kid in the whole damn world.

John has "Dibs on the tiger piece" on his tongue when his father digs the edge of his fork into the cake. He cuts out the square in the bottom right corner while he chatters away about the funny thing Mom said that morning, and plonks it into John's hands without even being asked. John turns his big blue eyes up at his father, who's already looking out across the street again, still going on and on about Jeanine.

"Hey," he says suddenly, looking lost in thought. John looks up questioningly. "What do you wanna do with your life this week, kiddo? Still on the space-travel thing?"

John shrugs, taking another bite of cake and watching the cars go by. 

"I'm gonna be a dad."

Alex Murphy laughs and laughs and laughs. John thinks that must've been a good answer.

 

 ***

 

_March 19th, 2028_

 

When Bellamy realizes he's a father, he is forty years-old.

A bony chin needles into his shoulder while he stirs the pitcher, eyes stuttering across the cursive slopes of a wrinkled home recipe book page. "Did I put in too much sugar?" he wonders aloud, and the faceless figure reaches around him to dig out another spoonful and dump it into the golden pitcher carelessly. 

"No such thing as too much sugar," Gina says, patting his stomach with the hand attached to the arm wound around his torso. He quirks a brow, snaking a hand down to her arm and unwinding the woman from his body, twirling her under his finger in the kitchen. She laughs sweetly, a soft chiming of wind, as she dances and he smiles in her wake.

He looks down for a moment to inspect the ring on his finger, a wide silver band, warm and snug. He looks up. The decorations look nice enough, but some of the balloons are starting to slump. The guests are taking longer to arrive than they thought, but, today... today is good.

"Dad!" a familiar voice calls from the hallway. "Dad, dad, dad," she chirps as she enters the kitchen, twirling something neon orange and glinting, metallic, between her small fingers. Her hair, blonde like summer straw, is cut short, just below her chin, and jagged, tucked behind her ears. Her eyes are a brilliant, steel blue. She looks more and more familiar every day. 

"Got anything you need me to crack open?" she says, an almost cocky-sounding lilt to her voice as she leans on the counter and looks nonchalantly around at the cabinets, spins the new screwdriver around in her hand until she fumbles. He quirks a brow.

"Tia, I thought I told you to quit bartering with Raven. She's a conwoman," Bellamy scolds, just as the devil herself saunters in and starts sucking on a lemon. She never even flinches, picks a little bit of stringy pulp off of her teeth before defending herself.

"That's a brand new Phillips head! Everything's Philips screws! And all I got in return was a broken headlamp. If anything, this was an act of charity," she says, throwing her hands in the air as she talks, watching something out of the glass doors to the back porch.

Gina laughs quietly as she joins Raven at the door, their eyes following something that Bellamy can't pinpoint. Costia hikes up the hideous cargo shorts _someone_ bought her, a size or two too large, as she shimmies her way between the older women to peer out of the door.

"Yeah," Bellamy mutters. "You're just brimming with goodwill." Raven chuckles a little absently at that, adjusting her ponytail as she peers closer to whatever it is they're all looking at.

Bellamy sighs, putting the spoon to rest on the sugary, sticky counter and sidling up beside the three of them to see what all the hubbub's about.

_"You-! You smarmy little- get back here!"_

Murphy is sprinting, red-faced and eyes knitted, but the smile on his lips betrays him. Miller takes a nasty dive and catches the perpetrator by the ankles, who falls into the grass with a soft thud and is quickly shrouded by two much larger men. Bellamy covers his mouth with a hand and stuffs the laugh that threatens to escape in his cheek, as Murphy snatches the half-eaten hamburger patty out of the little boy's hands and slings it over the fence. The hamburger flies like a frisbee until it lands with a slimy _'pwap'_   three yards over, and the boy is swooped up like hawk's prey and perched upon Murphy's still-narrow shoulders, who scolds the kid with a mouthful of words gone unheard at a lower, human volume.

"That kid is already a little criminal," Gina muses as Costia barks out a laugh and pushes through the doors to meet Murphy at the grill. Gina follows, presumably to call everyone inside, and Raven quirks a brow.

"Takes after his dads," she muses, looking between Miller and Murphy as they converse over the sizzling of burgers, beers in hand, the little dark-haired, tan-skinned boy clinging to Murphy's neck blowing bubbles of spit just by his ear. Bellamy laughs out loud at her comment, earning a gracious smile from Raven.

"Quit corrupting my daughter, by the way," he adds, meandering back over to the neglected lemonade pitcher. "She's already tried to dismantle the motorcycle twice this week. I had to put a child lock on the door to the garage. My next-to-last resort is buying a kennel."

He smacks her hand away as she reaches for another lemon wedge. "What's the last resort?" she asks.

"Excommunication. For you."

Raven smirks, and gives an amused little snort as the crowd of guests bumbling around the backyard start to file in noisily. Finn finds her quickly, and drapes himself over her back like a blanket, also eyeing the lemon wedges. Little weasels.

"What would I do without the _golden_ opportunity to come here and have my eardrums beaten into little pulps by all the nagging and screaming," she deadpans. "Please, no, it's _Heaven_ here."

Her argument, sadly, is supporting by the chatter and wailing of adults and children alike, as people filter in from outside and begin to fill the quiet spaces of the house like a running bath.

Costia's friends from school alone take up half the kitchen. There's Chelsea, she's the oldest. Asheem, who has an iPhone and is therefor the coolest, the first of any of them to own something more expensive than two hundred dollars. Ryker, a kid with grass-stains on his pants and a perpetual Kool-aid mustache. There's Mike, whose head you can see your reflection in and wears glasses clearly meant for an ostrich. And then there's Abril. Abril, she's special. Dark ringlets that swirl down to her waist, lips always stretched in a curious smile of awe and wonder. She loves science, particularly extinct animals, natural selection and evolution, but she has the capacity to keep up with Costia's space-ramblings, so of course, she's Costia's favorite. Of course, Costia talks about her nonstop, slung dramatically across the couch afterschool, raving on and on about Abril this, Abril that. Bellamy catches the girl's eye and gives her a smile, and Abril waves back shyly. Costia turns to him with murder in her eyes, making a slicing motion across her throat to ward her meddling father off. Bellamy laughs, a sound that dies in his throat as Murphy elbows his way inside screaming.

"Hot, hot, hot!" he shouts in the way of 'excuse me', hamburger patties stacked up and sizzling in his palm with only a thin napkin separating the steaming hot meat from his skin. Bellamy rushes forward to take the Leaning Tower of Beefa out of his custody, slinging them onto a plate waiting conveniently for disaster on the counter.

"Where's the tray, you idiot?!" Bellamy exclaims, crinkling up the napkin and wiping the grease from Murphy's red hot palm, who smiles sheepishly.

"Didn't think I'd need it."

"Dumbass."

Murphy faux-gasps, and points to the little boy still perched upon his shoulders, drumming on his scalp. "This is a G-rated event!"

Bellamy sighs, busying himself with plates and silverware, when a loud _'smack'_ echoes through the busy kitchen. "Agh! Griffin, you little shit!" Murphy cries, yanking the little boy off his shoulders and planting him on the ground. Griffin doesn't spare his father a second glance, toddling off with a surefire mystery destination in mind, dark curls bouncing almost comically as he goes. Murphy presses a palm to the pink handprint on his forehead and frowns, and Bellamy looks at him thoughtfully for a moment.

"I don't think he likes you."

Murphy gives him a horse face, upper lip curled in a 'huhuhuh, very funny' expression. "He's _your_ son."

 "Oh, and he wasn't your son last week at work when he made off with Caspian's wallet, and you paraded your "victorious flesh and blood, heir to the crown" around all day like a braggart?"

Murphy bites his lip to keep from snickering, forcing his lips into a frown as he opens his mouth to speak-- _thonk!_

Costia taps his temple with the end of her screwdriver and then shuffles backwards, jerking her thumb out at the flock of antsy tweens over her shoulder. "When's cake?"

"Yeah Murph, when's cake?" Bellamy asks, brow quirked.

"Now, if I can find- ugh- wherever you put it," he mutters, moving to rifle around in the fridge.

"No, wherever _you_ put it..." Bellamy corrects, confused, peering over Murphy's shoulder for some invisible, hypothetical cake.

"You bought it, didn't you?"

"I thought you-"

"No! You were supposed to..." Murphy's finger droops in the air, and he clears his throat, looking to Costia guiltily as she frowns.

"Houston, we have a problem."

 

***

 

_"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Costia, Happy Birthday to you!"_

 

Costia blushes and smiles, blows out the candle on her thirteenth birthday cake.

 

It is a hamburger.

 

***

 

"What did you wish for?"

 

"To build a space station."

 

Bellamy smiles, and leans down to kiss her temple. She beams.

 

"And an iPhone."

 

"Well, it was on a hamburger, so. Don't get your hopes up," Murphy says, legs kicked up on the table, picking at his teeth. Costia snarls.

 

***

 

"Lemonade's just like Clarke used to make it. Nice job," Murphy compliments, thigh pressed against Bellamy's as they sip from their glasses and stare at the photo above the mantle. "Maybe you could fill in at work for me after all."

The kitchen bustles with noise and laughter, and the house feels warm like it did in the summer all those years ago, mosquitoes creeping in, hair curling from the humidity and all.

Bellamy clicks their glasses together in acknowledgement, but the clinging noise comes from the clacking of matching rings. Murphy looks startled by the sound, and looks down to inspect his fingers.

He hums, eyes flickering to Bellamy's ring, looking almost... insecure. "I'll never get used to this."

Bellamy sips from his drink. "I'm worried I already have."

Murphy barks out a laugh and snatches Bellamy's drink from his hand, planting their glasses on the table and then diving in for the kill. He pins Bellamy down against the couch and they laugh, wrestling until their chests are heaving. They aren't so young anymore, their bones creak and crackle a little bit and they breathe a little too hard a little too fast, but Murphy doesn't kiss him, just crosses his arms over Bellamy's chest and rests his chin on them. And they lie there.

Time passes.

Griffin toddles up at some point in the tangerine evening, mouthing a stolen ring of keys that, judging by the meteor keychain, belongs to Raven. He abandons the trinket quickly when he sees the affectionate position of his fathers, like children do, and gives a rare little toothy smile. He clambers onto the couch and plants himself on Murphy's back. "Sleepy," he murmurs, and promptly passes out in the curve of Murphy's spine like it's a cradle.

And time passes.

The guests leave. Bellamy and Murphy are objectively terrible hosts, drooling on the couch even as darkness descends over the neighborhood, but everyone leaves smiling, and Costia waves the last of her friends and her fathers' friends goodbye and closes the door behind them all.

She approaches the couch and drapes herself over the back of it, so as not to crush her baby brother or her fathers. She's ninety-five pounds now, after all. 

"Happy Birthday," Murphy murmurs sleepily and it sounds almost like a question. Crickets chirp in the dark windows, Griffin snores softly.

Costia smiles up at the ceiling. "It was," she answers.

She fidgets.

Bellamy sighs.

"What did Abril do _this_ time?"

Costia throws her hands up as her mouth snaps open and her brain starts firing on all cylinders, the perfect picture of a sonic boom.

 

"Ah," Murphy sighs as their daughter rambles on, pinching his husband's cheeks and stretching his skin absent-mindedly. "Young love."

 

 And time passes.

 

_The End_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u read this whole steaming pile of Dung, thank you so much
> 
> this is THE largest work i have ever written, even though it objectively isn't THAT much compared to other chapter fics on this site, and it sucked the life out of me a little bit because i have a very short attention span but i am proud of myself. and im kind of super super sad now that it's over because i kind of got super attached to this universe and this family but it's. it's whatever. i'm not crying who's crying
> 
> i want to thank u guys who left kudos and commented and were so so so supportive and encouraging and interested and followed this stinker to the end. i definitely would've given up near the first few chapters without your helping hands <33 thank u so much
> 
> i really hope u guys enjoyed this cheesy ass fic. love love <3
> 
> note: griffin was adopted at six months old, and he is two and a half years old in this chapter. he's just a very stoic guy and likes to keep words to a minimum, but i personally thought "sleepy" was a showstopper. truly motivational. groundbreaking
> 
> note #2: alex murphy is based entirely off of my own father and i literally couldn't write him without my father's terrible accent. sorry for all the aints yalls and whomstvealls cowboys. murphy's dad is from texas just. accept this. for me. please


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